Untrue Resets
by TheEscapedCharacter
Summary: Chara's taken over and forced Frisk to RESET a happy ending. Sans is tired of going through it alone. But this time the RESET glitches, and all Frisk's friends can remember the latest timeline. How will they react to the genocide? Will the Undertale crew be able to SAVE Frisk from their own SOUL? T for trigger warnings
1. Quite A Chara-cter

Frisk smiled contently as Toriel tucked them into bed. /Love you, Mom/ the selectively mute eleven year old signed.

Toriel kissed their forehead. "I love you too, my child. Sleep well."

Frisk closed their eyes as the lights flicked off. Ten minutes later, they gave up on trying to sleep and decided to count sheep in hopes in would make them more tired. _Call on your inner Sans,_ they thought to themselves, giggling.

Somehow, counting sheep turned into counting their blessings. _I'm glad we're on the surface. I'm glad I live with Toriel. I'm glad I saved everyone. I'm glad Sans doesn't hate me for all the RESETS. I'm glad I overpowered Chara._

 _Oh, really?_ tittered a tiny voice that Frisk knew well.

 _Get out of my head, Chara,_ they thought at the demon. _I won't let you RESET this!_

 _But it's so much fun,_ Chara laughed gleefully. _Since when were you the one in control, Frisk?_

The child blinked, and suddenly they were back in the void, a place they knew well from Chara's constant RESETs.

"No!" Frisk shouted-here in the void, they had no qualms about talking. "You won't take over me again, Chara!"

The figure of the Fallen Child turned towards them. "Silly little Frisk," they giggled. "You cannot stop me. Your SOUL is mine."

Frisk gasped as their SOUL was forcefully yanked out of their chest. Their hands scrabbled at it, trying to push it back, but Chara's outstretched hand was slowly dragging them towards the demon.

Frisk planted their feet. "I won't!" they yelled.

"It is not your decision," Chara reprimanded, closing their fingers into a fist and pulling it back. Frisk was thrown forward and stumbled to their knees as their SOUL came to rest in front of Chara.

"We will destroy them all," Chara gloated as the two options appeared behind her. "Annihilate them in a glorious genocide."

"You can't!" Frisk screamed, tears bursting to life as they struggled against Chara's grasp on their SOUL.

"I can," Chara corrected, turning around to assess her choices.

*RESET

*DO NOT

Frisk lunged forward, but Chara swatted her to the side without a second glance. The saviour of the monsters landed in a heap in front of the _DO NOT_ button.

Their eyes widened, both Chara's and Frisk's. Frisk surged upwards and slammed their entire self on the _DO NOT_ option just as Chara pounded the shared SOUL against _RESET._

The void was obliterated by a shower of white glitches.


	2. Snowdin A Bad Situation

**Here's a skeleton-based fanfic, y'all! Update schedule will be a bit wacky, since I'll just update this whenever I get time, okay? Anyways, I just had this idea...how would Frisk's friends react if they** ** _knew_** **who Frisk was in a genocide run?**

 **Yes, I'm evil. I use Satan's publisher and enjoy torture and suffering, blah blah blah.**

 **Yep, in this story Papyrus will be the** ** _older_** **brother, and Sans is** ** _younger._** **I usually prefer it the other way around, but for this story it just works out better this way.**

 **And I do have a few headcanons that** ** _will_** **be canon for this story. If you wish to read through, just scroll down, or you can skip ahead to the story, I don't mind.**

 **1) HP stands for HOPE or Hope Points. It makes sense, yes? Papyrus, the most hopeful monster, has quite a bit of HP, and Sans, one of the most apathetic, has just 1. And the Librarby says monsters are made of hope, love, and compassion, right?**

 **This theory also explains why Papyrus dies so easily in Genocide-when you hit him, he loses some of the hope that you can be a good person. Determination and hope go hand in hand, as seen by the Undyne the Undying fight, and in Sans' battle he appears to have quite a bit of extra HP, since he'd be hopeful to get you to RESET. And in Asriel's battle, your HP simply refuses to go down-Frisk is hanging onto determination, and, by extension, HOPE.**

 **2) Sans can remember RESETS completely.**

 **3)The RESETS affect Sans immensely and have given him clinical depression. Reasoning:**

 **The symptoms of this disorder are**

 ** _Fatigue or loss of energy_**

 **Feelings of** ** _worthlessness_** **or** ** _guilt_**

 **Impaired concentration, indecisiveness**

 **Insomnia (night terrors, perhaps?) or hypersomnia (** ** _excessive sleeping)_**

 **Diminished interest or pleasure in most, if not all tasks**

 **Restlessness or feeling slowed down**

 **Thoughts of death or suicide (he has to think about death a lot, since Genocide is a normal occurrence, and he's the strongest person in history if he hasn't thought of ending it all at** ** _least_** **once)**

 **Significant weight loss or gain**

 **4)That brings me to my next headcanon-** ** _no, Sans is not fat._** **My theory on skeletons is that if you're healthy/average, your bones grow as normal and are strong, if you're fat, your bones grow thicker and get a little squishier, and if you're skinny/sickly, your bones get thinner/smaller and much more fragile. Based on the above headcanon about HOPE, since monsters are beings of hope, it's very possible that their Hope is connected to their actual health. I think that Sans lost hope and therefore his HP fell to 1. He got smaller (that's why he's so much shorter than Papyrus) and he became** ** _skinnier,_** **not fatter, because why eat when it'll all just be RESET, anyway? That's another reason why he's so fragile. I also think Sans wears his signature hoodie because for one thing, it makes him look like he's not losing weight so Papyrus doesn't worry, and it's also really fluffy and works as padding so Sans doesn't have to worry about death every time he trips over a snow poff.**

 **Well, that's enough theories for now. I don't own anything except the plot. Toby Fox owns Undertale.**

* * *

The oldest skeleton brother was completely and utterly terrified.

Papyrus had been cooking spaghetti with the human-Frisk, not even a day ago, happy in their new house on the surface. He'd had a car, a job as a guidance counselor at Queen Toriel's new monster-inclusive school, Undyne and Alphys were spending _quite_ a lot of time together that he didn't really understand, but that was okay since they were both content. And best of all, _Sans_ had actually been _happy,_ something Papyrus hadn't seen for a long time. Too long, in fact.

 _But why had this happened?_

In the beginning, the morning had seemed innocent. He'd given in to Sans a few months back and started _napping_ every night-Papyrus wasn't quite sure why he needed to, but the amount of sleep had reinvigorated him each day, so he'd grudgingly continued. He could still remember that look on Frisk's face when he'd confessed he'd been feeling _sleepy_ that afternoon. It had been rather embarrassing, but hearing Sans' laughter at the human's reaction had made it completely worth it.

This morning, though-well, the taller skeleton had woken up as normal, in his racecar bed (despite having an actual car now, Papyrus still enjoyed cruising the few times he snoozed) surrounded by action figures from Santa and his own old attacks. His room had never changed-the one in Snowdin and the one on the Surface world were strikingly similar. Sans' room was rather different on the surface, but who was he to judge his brother's taste in decor?

(Other than the sock, of course. Sans had even moved that dirty, useless piece of clothing to their _new_ house)

However, as soon as Papyrus had dressed in his battle body (It looked good as new; perhaps Queen Toriel had mended it as a surprise?) and gone downstairs, it became clear that something was very wrong.

The couch was in the wrong position. One of Mettaton's old shows was playing on the TV the skeleton brothers had gotten rid of long ago. Sans' physics/joke book was on the table, though Papyrus had _seen_ him move it up to his room not even a week ago.

With a strange feeling mixing with the dread weighing down his bones, Papyrus checked the kitchen. His tall sink was still there-hadn't he lowered it again? And as he looked over the walls, he noticed that the scorch mark that had marred the ceiling after cooking with Undyne was gone as well. The stove was the same type of older model they'd used in the Underground, unlike the shiny silver one Sans had bought him for his birthday.

Suddenly Papyrus realized the name of the odd feeling curling around his SOUL.

Deja vu.

Suddenly terrified, he ran to the window and looked outside. The skeleton sucked in an unnecessary breath.

It was snowing.

How? It was the middle of summer when he'd gone to sleep. Human seasons didn't just change from the hottest weather to the coldest overnight, did they? Papyrus shuddered as the truth dawned upon him.

He only knew one place where it snowed all year.

Snowdin.

 _What happened?_

How could he be back in Snowdin? In their old house, no less? Plus it was exactly as they'd left it-well, maybe that wasn't quite accurate. The few changes the skeleton brothers had made after moving to the Surface appeared to have been reversed. Everything was exactly like they'd been living here for years, like they'd never left.

Panicking, Papyrus raced upstairs. Sans-he had to talk to Sans. His younger brother would know what to do. He always did.

He stopped outside his brother's door for barely a moment, pondering whether or not he should knock. Sans didn't like it when Papyrus barged in. But his decision was made when he heard the quiet sobs coming from the other side of the door.

He eased the door open, forcing himself to remain calm. Sadly, 'calm' wasn't really Papyrus' forte. "SANS?" he asked as softly as he could, letting his eye sockets adjust to the dim lighting.

He could make out his brother sitting up in bed, facing away from the door. Papyrus could see his shoulders shaking ever so slightly.

He tried again, a bit louder. "SANS? BROTHER?"

The smaller skeleton jumped, before hurriedly swiping his forearm, encased in the fabric of an old pajama shirt, across his eye sockets. Sans turned around, a smile in place on his grinning skull. "yeah, bro? what is it?"

Papyrus' eye sockets narrowed. Even in this light, he could make out blue magic residue on his younger brother's cheekbones.

That meant Sans had been crying.

Even though his mind was screaming at him to comfort his brother, Papyrus stood, shaking, in the doorway. Eventually his panic won out against compassion, and he took a step forwards. "SANS?" he questioned hesitantly. "W-WHY ARE WE BACK IN SNOWDIN?"

At those words, Sans froze.

"y-you...you r-re...holy...holy _stars..._ oh god, you remember...you a-actually remember…" Sans was hyperventilating, his white pupils dilating, shaking so hard he was actually blurry. Papyrus blinked, petrified in fear. He thought...Sans would...and he did, but…

Papyrus had thought that his brother was unshakable, earlier in his life. Sans was always the one he went to with his problems-those days of his youth when he'd thought no one liked him? His little brother had convinced him he was too great for them. Those bullies that had tormented him? Sans put a stop to that real quick. Years ago, when they'd moved to Snowdin and Papyrus hadn't had enough money to keep renting out the house? Sans had taken on an extra job, becoming a sentry as well as an assistant to the Royal Scientist. Though the taller skeleton was indeed the older sibling, Sans had always acted the part more than he ever could. He could remember one or two times he'd had to comfort Sans from a nightmare, but that was about it.

But now...this horrible feeling, somehow back in Snowdin after all they'd done to get out of the Underground, and his brother-his baby brother, who always seemed so strong-was on the verge of a panic attack.

As he realized this, Papyrus shot into action, cursing himself for being so unresponsive. But the movement seemed to agitate Sans more, rather than calm him down.

Papyrus watched in horror as his younger brother began to choke.

* * *

 **Ha-ha! There's a cliffhanger for y'all!**

 **I'm not too good at writing Papyrus, and I'm new to Fanfiction, so I apologize if I butchered any characters. I welcome any constructive** **criticism** **.**

 **Please read and review, if you have time. Now that I've received a review, I know it's the best feeling in the world to know that someone likes your writing and is helping you along.**

 **Hope you enjoyed the second chapter of 'Untrue Resets'! See you soon, guys!**


	3. A Skele-Ton Of Problems

**Thanks so much for the positive responses of the first chapters! Here's a quick upload for you guys!**

 **Toby Fox owns Undertale. I own nothing except the plot.**

"BROTHER!" Papyrus cried out before realizing that shouting wasn't the best thing to do at the moment. Internally wincing-he was an Uppercase font, it was natural for him to be loud-he lowered the volume before sitting next to Sans on the bed and taking his younger brother's hands in his.

"SANS," he tried again, abandoning the attempt to grasp his brother's phalanges and simply wrapping his arms around the smaller skeleton in a comforting hug. He could feel Sans shaking and gasping against his ribs, and it tore the older skelton apart to be witnessing his younger brother's pain.

Yet, at the same time, he was almost glad. Sans was usually so secretive, always hiding anything that made him unhappy...maybe now was Papyrus' chance to help his brother.

"SANS," he soothed, "DON'T WORRY. I'M HERE. YOU'RE OKAY." He hummed softly, hoping the vibrations would help the distraught skeleton out of his panic attack.

"IT'S ALRIGHT, SANS. THERE'S NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF. I'M HERE WITH YOU. I'LL PROTECT YOU. YOU'RE SAFE. BREATHE. IT'S OKAY," Papyrus reassured. He vaguely remembered using the same techniques on his brother a long, long time ago, when they were babybones. Sans had been claustrophobic, severely so, and just being in a dark room had triggered panic attacks. The fear had thankfully grown less serious since then, although he knew his brother was still uncomfortable in elevators and other small spaces.

Slowly, Sans' breathing evened out as Papyrus hummed consolingly. "p-pap," he breathed into the older skeleton's chest.

Papyrus immediately loosened his grip, letting Sans move around. "BROTHER? ARE YOU ALRIGHT? DO YOU NEED ANYTHING?" he asked concernedly.

"'m...fine," the teenaged skeleton replied unsteadily. He gave Papyrus a shaky smile. "guess...we both thought...we were done with those...huh?" Sans laughed weakly.

"SANS-" Papyrus began, intending to get his brother to tell him what had brought him to panic so badly, but he was caught off guard by the young skeleton stiffening in his arms, seemingly remembering something.

"pap..papyrus," he started, slight terror hidden in his voice, "you said that-that you...thought we should be...o-on the surface?"

Papyrus startled, his confusion and fright coming back in full swing once his brother was no longer in danger. "WELL, YES," he said uncomfortably. "WERE-WERE WE NOT THERE WHEN WE WENT TO SLEEP?"

The small skeleton leaned forwards intensely. "pap, you gotta tell me _exactly_ what you remember."

Papyrus thought for a moment on the strange request. "WE WERE WATCHING A MOVIE LAST NIGHT," he recalled. "ABOUT A SUPERHERO? AND BEFORE THAT, UNDYNE, FRISK AND I WERE MAKING SPAGHETTI FOR DINNER, YES?"

If Sans had lips, he would be biting them. "before that? like, before we got onto the surface?"

"WE...LIVED HERE? FRISK FELL INTO THE UNDERGROUND?" Papyrus asked, confused.

"nothing before that? no surface, nothing?"

"UM, NO. WHY WOULD WE BE ON THE SURFACE BEFORE BEING UNDERGROUND? I MEAN, OTHER THAN THIS TIME."

Sans chuckled darkly. "oh, this is not good. at least it's just that one, but this is _really_ not good. i dunno what that kid did to this one, but this is gonna _suck."_

Papyrus looked sideways at his brother. "SANS? YOU'RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE."

"oh. oh, yeah." Sans had visibly calmed quite a bit. He took in another deep breath. "okay. pap, i'll tell you everything, but first we need to know who else knows, okay? can you call undyne?"

Perplexed, Papyrus did as his brother asked, keeping a close eye on the smaller skeleton as he fished his phone out of a hidden pocket. Strange, it appeared to be an older model. He dialed the familiar number. A _beep_ rang out.

"not that one, bro. the old one," Sans clarified.

He dialed again. This time, Undyne picked up on the second ring. "Hey, Papyrus!" she yelled through the receiver. "What the heck's going on? I'm in my house in Waterfall, punk! The one that burned down! What happened?"

Papyrus shrugged before remembering he was talking on the phone. "I...DON'T KNOW. BUT I THINK SANS DOES."

Sans held out a hand, asking for the phone. Papyrus gave it to him just as Undyne started yelling. "What's that supposed to mean? Hey, Sans! What's going on here? Is this a prank? It's not funny!"

"undyne, is alphys with you?" he questioned earnestly.

Undyne stopped for a moment. "She's coming over. Neither of us know what the heck's going on, and when I called Asgore, he acted like we've never been on the surface at all! Is this a joke, Sans? If it is, it's not a good one, okay?"

Sans ignored the royal guard's accusations. "okay, thanks. can you and alphys come over?"

"We'd better get an explanation when we get there, punk!" The line went dead.

Sans breathed out a sigh. "okay, pap, call tori," he instructed, handing him his phone back.

Papyrus frowned to the best of his ability over his constant skeleton grin. "WHY?" he wondered. "YOU KNOW THE QUEEN BETTER THAN I."

Sans shook his head. "that's the point. if i call, she'll recognize my voice and ask where i got the number."

"WON'T QUEEN TORIEL RECOGNIZE MINE AS WELL?"

"trust me on this, pap. if she remembers being on the surface, tell her to come here. if not, make up an excuse and hang up."

Deciding to wait until the others arrived to ask his questions, Papyrus called the Queen. "Hello?" she asked.

"UM, JUST A QUESTION, QUE-MA'AM," he corrected himself after Sans' warning look. "DO YOU REMEMBER BEING ON THE SURFACE?"

"Who is this?" the Queen inquired.

"IT IS THE GREAT-DOG," he hurriedly lied after another look. "UM, YES. I AM THE GREAT DOG."

"Why are you asking this? How did you get this number?" Queen Toriel's voice grew more suspicious.

"UM, I'M...UH...DOING A SURVEY AND DIALING EVERY POSSIBLE NUMBER," Papyrus improvised.

"Oh, well, alright. I admire your dedication, young one," the Queen praised. "Yes, I have been on the Surface, before the war. It is rather lovely."

"ANY OTHER TIME?"

"Well...no, not since the barrier."

"ALL RIGHT, THANK YOU, GOODBYE." He hung up quickly, glancing at Sans, who had gotten off the bed and started pacing. "SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER," he informed, puzzled. And while he usually liked puzzles, this one was a bit of a stretch for even The Great Papyrus to figure out.

"yeah, after hearing about asgore i kinda expected it. I guess it's only me, you, alphys and undyne, then." Sans exhaled, dragging his hands across his face. "stars, this is gonna be hard."

"WHAT?" Papyrus asked, getting slightly impatient.

"i'll tell you guys everything once alphys and undyne get here," Sans consoled, rummaging through his closet for clothes. Papyrus noticed how _small_ his brother seemed without his signature fluffy hoodie.

"I'LL GO...DOWNSTAIRS?" It was more of a question. Sans nodded.

"yeah, i'll get dressed and meet you down there, okay bro?"

Papyrus sat restlessly on the couch, waiting. Moments after Sans reappeared, wearing his basketball shorts, a white shirt, and slippers, but interestingly not his hoodie, the doorbell rang, followed by a few loud knocks.

"I swear, if you don't let us in, I'll break your door down, Papyrus!" Undyne's voice yelled from outside.

Papyrus opened the door to reveal his tall, fishlike mentor and the Royal Scientist, both clad in heavy coats. Undyne stormed in, shedding her jacket carelessly. Alphys was a bit more anxious, hanging up both her and her girlfriend's coats. The two wore their regular outfits, meaning a black tank top and a lab coat.

"D-do y-y-you know w-what happened?" the yellow dinosaur asked Papyrus. He shook his head.

Meanwhile, Undyne was standing threateningly over Sans, who'd taken a seat on the couch. "If you don't tell us what's going on _right now,_ I'll skewer you," she promised.

Sans winced. "okay, okay. Well, this is gonna be hard to believe, but i swear on the angel and my own life, i'm not lying."

"What is it?" Undyne demanded.

The younger skeleton brother locked eyes with every person in the room. He took a deep breath. "we've gone back in time."

 **Well, yeah, there was a bit of filler in there, but mostly that pushed the story along rather well, don't you think?**

 **Here's the reasoning behind Sans panic attack in case you're wondering (yes, I gave Sans claustrophobia. Papyrus needs to know how to calm him down from somewhere, mm-hmm? Plus that may be a plot point sometime...you never know)**

 **First of all, he's terrified because the RESET glitched and Sans doesn't know what else is wrong.**

 **Secondly, he doesn't want Papyrus to know, because he wants to keep his brother's innocence.**

 **Finally, he's panicking because he thinks Papyrus will leave him because Sans thinks Papyrus remembers** ** _all_** **the timelines, and that he'll be upset about what Sans did in the Genocide runs, and mad that Sans knew and didn't tell him. And yes, of course Papyrus** ** _wouldn't_** **be angry, but Sans is panicking right now, he's not thinking straight.**

 **I apologize if I got anything wrong in this chapter, or if I butchered any characters. I welcome constructive criticism!**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews make me happy, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon, guys!**


	4. The Pacifisht Of The Tunaverse

**Here's another chapter of 'Untrue Resets'!**

 **Undertale belongs to Toby Fox. I own nothing except the plot.**

* * *

Undyne stared disbelievingly at Sans, trying to process what she'd just heard. The small skeleton's blank dark eye sockets bored into her-she'd never tell him, or Papyrus for that matter, but Sans was actually kind of frightening when he was serious.

The Captain of the Royal Guard forced a snort, rolling her good eye. "Come on, Sans. Can you cut the jokes and tell us what's actually going on?"

Papyrus' and Alphys' eyes swung over to hers, and Undyne shifted, getting more uncomfortable. Sans laughed hollowly.

"i wish it were a prank," he said quietly. Undyne bit her lip-no nineteen year old, monster or no, should sound as weary as Sans did right now.

"Prove it," she ordered, trying to appear in control of the situation.

Another mirthless laugh from the smaller skeleton. "don't think i can do anything 'bout proof 'til the kid comes around. and by then it'll be too late. pretty much the only hope is that you'll believe me so we can minimize damage."

As if to drive home the fact that it was their 'only hope', Sans' SOUL gently floated out of his rib cage as the skeleton pulled up his stats. The number 1 in front of his HOPE was glaringly obvious, as usual. The three other monsters flinched-Undyne didn't know how Sans could live the way he did, as a one-hit wonder.

"WHAT ABOUT FRISK?" Papyrus asked. "WHERE ARE THEY?"

"i'll get to that in a moment, pap, if you guys can get over the first thing." Sans' SOUL and stats faded back into his rib cage.

Something about the teenage skeleton's words made Undyne think that maybe, impossibly, he wasn't lying. "Go on," she said, practically biting her tongue in an effort to get over her initial distrust of his suggestion.

"H-how w-w-would that b-be possible?" Alphys wondered. "M-m-messing around with t-time or space could get you in a b-b-bad situation, o-or really hurt!"

Sans closed his eyes. "yeah."

"SANS?" Papyrus asked worriedly.

"m'okay, bro. just kinda…" Sans couldn't find the words.

Honestly, Sans was _terrified_ at the thought of having to tell his friends, his _brother_ about everything Chara had done, and how weak he'd been to stop it. But the last timeline had been a Pacifist one, where Frisk was in charge...the kid didn't RESET from those often, now that she'd accepted that Asriel/Flowey would just have to survive in a flowerpot. Usually Frisk gave them as much time on the surface as possible, and it had been a while this time. Chara would have been impatient.

That meant this timeline was most likely going to be a Genocide.

He couldn't do that to his brother, Alphys, or Undyne, _especially_ if they remembered Frisk the way he did. How much would it destroy them to watch their best friend murder everyone they cared about? How horrified would they be to learn that the child would attempt to kill them as well?

He couldn't just leave them uninformed. Maybe Sans could save them this time.

"imagine…" he started, "imagine...pap."

The tall skeleton looked at him with surprise etched on his skull. Sans wasn't deterred-he had to make them understand as much as possible. "okay, pap, imagine...uh, undyne asked you to go to extra training, but you have sentry duty."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Undyne demanded, frustrated.

"a lot, actually. so, pap, you, uh...decide to go to training, okay?" Sans clarified. "imagine that when you made that choice, the universe pretty much split off into two-one timeline where you went to training, and the other where you went to sentry duty."

The young skeleton could see Alphys' mind racing, but surprisingly, all three of the monsters kept quiet, waiting for him to continue. So he did.

"the timeline pap's in is the one where he goes to training. and after training, uh, alphys comes over and you watch some shows, but then undyne and alphys get in a fight. so now you're stuck there in the middle with no idea what to do."

Sans took another breath. "now, imagine you're a time traveler. no one else knows about time traveling but you. instead of working through it with them, you go back to before the fight and divert it altogether. by doing this, you just basically jumped timelines, out of the one where alphys and undyne fought and into one where everything's good.

"but you feel kinda bad, because you just left me to do sentry duty all by myself. so you go back to when you had the choice of sentry duty or training and go to sentry duty, taking a new path down a new timeline. this time, though, when you call undyne after, it turns out she and alphys had the fight when you weren't there. you feel responsible, so you go back, go to training, and resolve their fight. then you start feeling guilty about leaving me alone, so you jump back to right after the fight's been resolved and come back home and we spend the night together.

The small skeleton looked hard at his brother. "by now, you found the best possible path, but by doing so, you basically hijacked four timelines and messed up the universe a little by stopping a bunch of timelines. pap, if you were a time traveler, and you could find that good path at the cost of messing a bunch of other things up, would you do it?"

Papyrus thought for a moment. Sans waited with baited breath-he didn't know how his older brother would answer, and if he responded positively...Sans didn't know what he would do.

"NO." Papyrus' reply was almost startling. "I WOULD TRY TO FIND A SOLUTION IN MY OWN TIMELINE. BUT WHY DO YOU ASK THIS, SANS?"

Sans exhaled. "wow, you have no idea how glad i am to hear that. as for why-"

"That's e-exactly what's happening, isn't it?" Alphys spoke up. "S-somebody restarted our timeline to right now."

"But that's a dumb answer! It's impossible!" Undyne exclaimed. "Some punk's got time powers, is that what you're saying?"

Sans locked eyes with her. "yep. pretty much, yeah." He couldn't stop himself from shaking slightly as he added, "there's been dozens of RESETS so far. hundreds. maybe even thousands."

"Why wouldn't we remember them, then?" the fish monster challenged, trying to find flaws in what Sans was proposing.

The skeleton shrugged. "dunno. it's always just been me," he said softly.

"D-do you know what's c-c-causing these R-R-RESETS?" Alphys questioned.

The young skeleton looked down. He didn't want to tell this part. "yeah."

"Then who is it?"

Sans swallowed. "it's the kid."

"FRISK?" Never had Papyrus ever looked so shocked.

"What? No! Frisk wouldn't do something like this!" Undyne objected.

Alphys stayed silent, her eyes asking Sans to go on.

So he did, beginning his long, painful tale-the very first timeline, where they'd gone to the Surface, the accident Frisk had made that brought them back, a second Pacifist timeline, Frisk RESETting a couple more times for innocent reasons-wanting to SAVE Asriel, wanting the joy of helping everyone once again-before things started to go sour.

Sans forced down another bout of hyperventilating and shaking-he'd worried Papyrus enough today. "that was when it started going bad. First time was an accident-a froggit came out of nowhere and frisk panicked and hit it with her stick. it...it died. and the kid started going insane from the LOVE.

"they-they kept killing. and it woke up a spirit-chara, the first human, who got corrupted and started to possess frisk.

"the kid...they realized what they were doing before going out of the ruins. they wanted to RESET and start over again, but chara took over them with a twisted sense of justice, convinced that murder would teach the kid what they'd done wrong.

Sans shuddered. "chara...killed toriel. no regrets, nothing. then they got out...and…"

He looked up, his eye lights completely gone. "they-they...began their genocide. everyone in snowdin...they..."

The small skeleton had started trembling. "pap went out to try and convince them to be good," he whispered. "and they...they…" A small, choked sob came from the skeleton and he huddled in on himself.

Undyne stood stock-still. It wasn't a joke. The fact blasted down on her, making the royal guard's ears ring. Sans would never, ever joke about someone hurting Papyrus. _Ever._

Alphys was similarly frozen, leaving Papyrus room to comfort his brother once again. Thoughts raced through the older skeleton's skull. In some timeline, he'd...died. He'd left his little brother alone.

Once Sans had calmed down, he continued with only a small quiver to his voice. "undyne was next. you were a hero," he told the fish monster, staring her straight in the eye. "but you can't beat someone who can RESET time."

It was Undyne's turn to come to terms with the fact that she'd died...to Frisk's hands, no less. "Unbelievable," she murmured. "That little punk…"

Sans shook his head vehemently. "no, it wasn't frisk. not at all. that kid's the-the paci _fish_ t of the _tuna_ verse," he punned weakly, trying to lift the desolate tension. Undyne shot him a toned-down glare.

"it was chara. frisk hated it. they tried to stop the demon but they couldn't do anything." Sans turned to Alphys. "you were a hero too. you led the evacuation while i…"

Sans didn't meet Papyrus' eye sockets, which were begging him to say he'd gotten away. "met the kid in judgement hall," he breathed. "i...killed them. so many times."

He began shivering again.

"you should be glad you can't remember dusting," the younger skeleton concluded, purposefully looking away from them all.

Before anyone could say anything, Sans kept talking, telling them how many times Chara had destroyed the world, how many times Frisk had brought them to the surface, how many times Chara killed them all, over and over and over again before the good kid could wrestle back control from the demon. How he could remember it all.

One slight panic attack, many questions, and a lot of horrified silence later, Undyne could only look at the young skeleton.

 _How is he still sane?_ she wondered. _How could he pretend nothing was wrong, watching a genocide again and again, living the same day for years? How many times did he die?_

Undyne was sure that if she'd been in his place, she'd be completely nuts by now. The royal guard honestly didn't blame him for watching the genocides-the skeleton had such low HP that jumping in front of someone to take a hit would only kill him instantly and leave the defender traumatized, which would ultimately lead to a faster demise, and no one to battle the human in Judgement Hall. Plus there was that weird 'judge' thing Sans had told them about-something about not being able to interfere in the human's choices too much.

Alphys' breaths could be mistaken for gasps, now. Time travel...her friend Frisk was a time traveler, battling against a demon. The science in her mind wanted more answers, but she knew better than to ask them of Sans. Now that they were approximately six or seven months in the past, she and her girlfriend were twenty-two, Papyrus was twenty, and Sans was only eighteen. It was so, so wrong to ask any more of the teenaged skeleton. Alphys knew how depression felt, and she was certain the RESETS had left a mark on the young monster.

Papyrus stared. Sans...his younger brother...he'd forced his baby brother to watch him die hundreds of times. Sans had had to kill Frisk, or at least Frisk's body, to prevent more deaths after witnessing the monster race be destroyed. Sans had gone to the surface more times to count, only to wake up back in Snowdin. His brother had been through so much, all alone.

Papyrus hugged the younger skeleton, taking him by surprise. "YOU ARE NOT ALONE ANY LONGER, BROTHER," he told Sans firmly. "WE WILL HELP YOU, AND FRISK, TO GET RID OF THE DEMON."

"Yeah!" Undyne agreed, pulling Alphys along to join the hug. "Chara's gonna be sorry she messed with us! We'll get to the surface for good this time!"

"Y-yeah," Alphys affirmed. "W-we can do it!"

Sans looked around at them, feeling choked. They actually...didn't hate him. They wanted to help. Help him. Help Frisk.

But there was one more thing to say.

"wait," he said. The group hug froze, three faces staring once more at Sans.

He resisted the urge to shrink back. "there's another thing."

Sans cast his eyes downwards, hating having to say the words as much as he knew they would be horrified to hear them. "this timeline...it's gonna be a genocide."

* * *

 **Way to drop a bombshell on them Sans.**

 **Sorry, this chapter's mostly filler. I'll get one with more action out as soon as I can, okay?**

 **Yes, there are the ages for this story. Alphys and Undyne are twenty-two, Papyrus is twenty, Sans is eighteen, and Frisk is eleven. Chara should be eleven or twelve, and Asgore and Toriel are somewhere in early/mid thirties. Yes, Undyne calls Sans nineteen, but that's because she doesn't believe that they went back in time yet.**

 **Once again, thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day. See you later, guys!**


	5. Stamen-a Of A Determined SOUL

**Let's all check on out favorite pacifist, shall we?**

 **Undertale belongs to Toby Fox. I own nothing except the plot. There are quotes from the game in this chapter too-I don't own those either.**

Frisk awoke smothered by golden flowers.

Alarmed, the human child spat the petals out of their mouth, remembering what had happened to the demon that shared their SOUL. As if somehow bolstered by the thought, Chara made themselves known.

 _I wonder, where's Asriel?_ The Fallen Child mused thoughtfully. The tingling feeling that indicated Chara's control spread over Frisk's body, the young pacifist powerless to stop it. Chara stood and stretched, trying out Frisk's form for the first time in months.

"We'll have to do this more often, Frisk," they said to the saviour of monsterkind. "It took longer than usual to take control, now-I'm losing my touch!" Chara giggled.

Frisk mentally crossed their arms and glared. _I'll SAVE them this time,_ they promised themself. _I have to._

Chara didn't notice as they patiently waited for Flowey to pop out of the flowerbed. "I wish I had a knife," they lamented. "I could start our genocide right now."

 _Our._ That's what Chara always called it. Meaning it was Frisk's fault as he friends fell to dust.

The young pacifist shuddered, recalling. Their last words were always the same.

" _Now I see who I was protecting by keeping you here. Not you...but them! Ha...ha…"_

" _W-WELL, THAT'S NOT WHAT I EXPECTED...BUT...ST...STILL! I BELIEVE IN YOU! YOU CAN DO A LITTLE BETTER! EVEN IF YOU DON'T THINK SO! I...I PROMISE…"_

" _This world will live on…"_

" _...…...so...guess that's it, huh? ...just...don't say i didn't warn you. welp. i'm going to grillby's. papyrus, do you want anything?"_

" _Why...You…"_

" _Please don't kill me."_

As if thinking about Asriel had summoned Frisk's surrogate brother, Flowey burst out of the flowerbed and began his spiel. If Frisk had been in control, they would have jumped. As it was, their humiliation was limited to Chara, who silently howled with laughter.

Once done making fun of Frisk, Chara got bored. Too impatient to listen, the Fallen Child pulled the shared body away and started walking to the exit.

"Chara!" Flowey's childish voice was petulant as he followed them, startling the demon as he appeared right in front of their feet. "You're supposed to play with me!"

Growling, Chara swung their stick. It smashed into Flowey with a sickening noise, and the soulless flower yelped. Frisk gasped.

 _Don't hurt him!_ they cried, managing to drop the stick. Chara snarled as they pushed Frisk down once again.

"Stay out of my way," they hissed, warning both the fallen prince and the soul trapped inside.

Flowey whimpered and disappeared. Frisk's consciousness swelled beneath Chara's firm grasp on their SOUL. They'd taken control! Only of their hand, but it was still progress. Maybe they could warn Sans this time, if he hadn't already seen the signs. Maybe this time the monsters would evacuate in time.

 _Don't count on it,_ Chara told them inside their mind.

 _You have to be stopped eventually,_ Frisk thought back.

 _I will never die! As long as_ _ **you**_ _live, I will as well, punishing you. And you will never die. Our DETERMINATION has proven that. Our endless dust is proof of that._

Frisk refused to think of it. _I'll stop you._

 _Like you've stopped me, on our other genocides? You don't have the power. You are weak._

 _I can. I'll do it. We'll banish you for good._

 _We'll see._

 **Sorry it's so short, but I figured an update on how Frisk is doing wouldn't hurt. Plus I wanted to try out my stamen-a pun. Get it? Stamen-a? As in stamen? As in stamina? Ha ha...I'm not funny.**

 **We'll be back to Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys soon, don't worry! Maybe I should change the theme of this story to Angst...I kinda went a little overboard on the horrified reactions to the RESETS, but I really wanted to convey the message that Sans should be seriously respected for surviving/not going insane.**

 **Anyways, there's another chapter of 'Untrue Resets'! Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**


	6. Who Are You Kid-Ding?

**I am** ** _so_** **sorry about the lateness of this chapter. School just caught up to me, and I have a** ** _bunch_** **of activities, and excuses excuses excuses.**

 **Anyway, besides that, thank you so much for the great reviews! And the favs, and the follows..I want to see if we can get to eight or nine reviews now, okay? And I'll try to get out the next chapter soon, again, sorry for the** **inexcusable** **lateness! But here it is, Chapter Six of 'Untrue Resets'!**

 **I own nothing, not even the puns. (Did you get this chapter title's? Well, once you read the chapter you might) Toby Fox owns Undertale.**

* * *

Sans leaned backwards, straight into a shortcut. He didn't want to see their faces.

The skeleton hurtled through the void for less than a second before materializing at the door to the Ruins. Leaning back against the wood, Sans let out a sigh.

How ironic that he would end up here. Normally when Sans headed for random teleportation routes, they either led to the edge of Snowdin Forest or somewhere in his house. He was glad for the variety, though. After _that_ news...suffice to say, his friends had looked really...unsatisfied.

The skeleton let out a grim laugh. He _hated_ following the 'script' with a passion. Not surprising, really, after the amount of times he'd repeated it and heard it repeated. But sometimes it still slipped out.

Sans let the back of his skull fall against the door as he slid down into a sitting position. He rapped on the door twice.

"knock knock," he murmured. He could use Toriel's comfort right about now. But then again, right now his surrogate mother/friend was only 'the lady behind the door'. She didn't know him yet.

The thought made his SOUL hurt.

Huh, she'd usually have responded by now. "knock knock," he said again.

There was no answer.

He tried again. And again.

But nobody came.

"knock knock!" Sans called in a panic, almost smashing the bones in his hands as he banged desperately on the door. "knock knock!"

After a moment of screaming the words, Sans went quiet. He sank further into the snow.

Was that it, then? Had Chara already begun their murder spree? Was Toriel dead already?

"knock...knock…" he got out before the tears started escaping, cyan blue magic trailing down his cheekbones. Sans started breathing faster, images flashing through his head.

Dust, dust, dust, spreading across the ground, consuming him, choking him, Chara lunging, the sinister glint in their unnatural red eyes, the shining silver of the knife muted by the dust, the feeling of it ripping through his ribs, tearing open his SOUL-

"Are you all right?"

The warm, concerned voice interrupted his thoughts, and Sans, breathing a sigh of relief, managed to force down his emotions once again. It was okay. Toriel was still alive. Still alive.

"i'm fine," he lied, feeling disgusted that he was taking advantage of the fact that she didn't yet know him well enough to note the change in his voice. "just...uh, i fell."

 _Yeah right. If that was true, I'd be dead. I'm not even wearing a jacket right now. I might_ _ **bite the dust**_ _from the cold alone._

"Oh. I suppose, if you're alright now." Toriel's voice was motherly but doubtful. However, both emotions were replaced by mirth at her next words. "Knock knock!"

Sans relaxed. "who's there?"

"Hatch."

He knew this one. "Hatch who?"

"Bless you."

He laughed-her jokes were funny every time. "good one, you really **got my goat** there."

Then he froze, realizing the mistake. Had she told him about that yet? Sans got mixed up, remembering, sometimes, with all the different timelines. He waited with baited breath to see how she'd react.

" **Tibia** honest, it wasn't my most **humerus** ," Toriel joked, chuckling. He let out a sigh of relief. So she knew he was a skeleton. That meant he knew she was a goat. It was okay, then.

He got a little confused sometimes.

"that dog I was telling you about came back," Sans said abruptly, thinking of another pun. He'd told it before, although Toriel hadn't heard it in this timeline. If his RESET-hazy memory was right, she'd laughed for a while about this one. "it ran off with part of my bro's femur collection. i guess you could say it left him without a **leg to stand on**."

Sure enough, the former Queen's laughter was exuberant and purely happy. Sans smiled to himself-this felt good. Forgetting about timelines and everything Papyrus, Alphys, and Undyne now knew, simply telling bad puns and knock knock jokes through the door to the Ruins...it was familiar. Relaxing, even. It was nice to get away.

"Well…" the laughter from the other side of the door stopped suddenly. Sans strained his non-existent ears, wondering what Toriel had to say.

"yeah?"

"Child, I hate to ask this of you, but…"

He went rigid. This. How could he have forgotten? Always, the first time he talked to Toriel after the RESET, she'd always, always ask him…

"If a human ever comes through this door...protect them, will you, child?"

Sans was silent. How could he refuse? How could he accept? He'd never, ever told her no before; it wasn't scripted. Then again, Papyrus, Alphys, and Undyne remembering RESETS wasn't scripted either. This was a Genocide. If he said yes, he'd be protecting a murderer. A murderer who was a friend to him, his brother, and all of their friends and family.

How could he _not_ accept?

The promise always seemed to follow him through timelines. Technically he could back out at any time, since the promise hadn't happened yet...but still. It was a promise he'd made. One he couldn't break. But also one he couldn't make.

"sorry, tori," he said quietly. "i don't think i can this time. see you soon."

"Oh. Well," he could practically hear her biting her lip, "I suppose…" she went silent. "Child?" Toriel asked in a controlled voice. "What did you call me?"

She wouldn't get an answer. Sans was already walking away, his hands clenched with no jacket pockets to hide them in.

* * *

Undyne watched with shock as the short skeleton just _disappeared._

"What the heck just happened?" she demanded Papyrus.

The older skeleton brother was understandably distracted, staring at the spot on the couch where his brother had been. "A SHORTCUT."

Undyne threw her hands in the air. "That doesn't help! And what'd he mean, this was gonna be some kind of genocide?"

Alphys hesitantly set her hand on the royal guard's arm, calming her marginally. "S-S-Sans teleports," she told her girlfriend. "A-a-and, well, I-I think w-we know what h-he meant."

Conveniently ignoring that last bit, Undyne focused on something she could actually say something about without feeling like her gills were freezing to the sides of her head. "He can freaking TELEPORT? Are you kidding me? Why'd he never tell us? How'd you even know?"

Alphys tugged at the buttons on her lab coat nervously. "W-we worked at the C-CORE together, a l-long time a-a-ago."

"YOU DID?" Papyrus was frowning over top of the permanent skeleton smile. "WHEN?"

"A-a c-c-couple of y-years ago?"

Undyne interrupted again, feeling like she should get them back on track. "Okay, that's great, but are we gonna talk about this or what? Where'd Sans even go?"

Papyrus turned his skull to the door. "HE...I'M SURE MY BROTHER WILL BE FINE."

There was something in the skeleton's voice other that the audible font; it was stunned and smaller than usual. Undyne played the words back in her head and heard...shame?

That was wrong, so wrong, on so many levels. Papyrus was supposed to be confident and happy. This wasn't right. It wasn't okay.

Then again, none of this was.

"Genocide," Alphys' voice broke in. "This timeline...it'll b-be a genocide. Right? That's w-hat Sans told us. A-a-and it's l-logical. I-if...If Frisk is still the F-Frisk we know, t-t-then they wouldn't R-RESET the s-surface, right?"

"Yeah!" Undyne nodded. "We've just gotta separate them from this Chara thing! And, uh…" she looked to Papyrus. "Your brother might need a little help too."

Papyrus stayed silent, his eyes trained on the window.

"Papyrus?"

He shook off the stupor. "YES, OF COURSE. I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO ACT LIKE THE BIG BROTHER SANS DESERVES!" The skeleton grinned blindingly.

There it was again, the slight shame. Undyne knew that just as skeletons had the best smiles, they also had the fakest. Sans had probably been faking his for a while now, and Papyrus wasn't that bad himself.

"Hey." The warrior's voice softened as she set her hands on Papyrus' scapulas and turned him to face her. "You didn't know, Papyrus. You couldn't have helped him any more, but you did your best when you didn't know what was happening. That's what a _really_ great big brother would do."

Papyrus swallowed. "YES. I-I DID. AND NOW I CAN BE EVEN BETTER!"

In the blink of an eye, the old Papyrus was back. "AND NOW LET'S GO FIND MY BROTHER! I'M SURE THAT WE CAN GET THROUGH THIS...GENOCIDE. RIGHT, UNDYNE? ALPHYS?"

"F-for sure!" Alphys reassured.

Undyne leaped up. "Yeah! Now come on, punks, we've got a skeleton to find!"

* * *

 **There you are, y'all! Another chapter of 'Untrue Resets'! Kind of a bad ending...oops. well, no one's perfect, I guess. Although you guys make me feel awesome with your sweet reviews! Keep being amazing, friends!**

 **I apologize for any OOCness, I welcome reviews and constructive criticism, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**


	7. Snow More RESET Problems, Please

**Sorry for the wait once again, but here's Chapter...Nine? Nope, that's definitely seven, sorry.**

 ***winks***

 **You guys are amazing. So many reviews, favs, and follows! Seriously, I don't deserve this.**

 **Also, anyone ever heard of Daughtry? It's a** ** _great_** **band. There's an Undertale lyric comic to 'I'll Fight' by them, and Ghost Of Me by Daughtry is the song I imagine playing whenever Papyrus has to comfort Sans from a bad nightmare. And-who knew-some Taylor Swift songs are perfect for Undertale, too, despite a few lyrics about romantic love. Namely Haunted, which I imagine is a song from either Frisk to Dusttale!Sans or Sans to Chara/Frisk, and Tied Together With A SMile, which is fantastic for Sans.**

 **Whatever. I hope you enjoy the new chapter!**

 **I don't own anything but the plot. Toby Fox owns Undertale. I just occasionally kidnap his characters and they hang out in my house and troll my friends online.**

* * *

Sans cracked silent jokes in his mind as he walked past the patrons of Snowdin Town, but kept unusually silent. The Canine Unit of the Royal Guard, the rabbit family, and even Monster Kid gave him strange looks.

 _no need to be_ _ **dogging**_ _my footsteps, dogamy, everything's fine._

 _hey, miss chirp, how're the the bunnies doing? wouldn't want them getting_ _ **bonely**_ _._

 _sup mk, what's goin' on? looking for undyne? heh. i'm sure she'll be impressed with your_ _ **reel**_ _entlessness._

Despite having the familiar responses ready in his arsenal, Sans just strode past everyone who tried to engage him in conversation. Who cared? This whole timeline was screwed up. First, it was everyone remembering, then he'd had to come clean about the RESETS, then there was the slip-up with Toriel. What did it matter if he didn't say his lines, now that everything was so off-script?

Besides, Sans had other things to worry about. He had no idea what was going to happen. The skeleton could barely keep _himself_ from giving up; the only thing that kept him going was Papyrus.

Sweet, innocent Papyrus, who acted a little juvenile at times, sure, but was the best big brother he could ask for when it mattered, when it didn't, and every second in between. The one who helped him with his nightmares and made him terrible spaghetti, day after day. Optimistic. Happy.

And now Sans had to throw that away, show his brother every horror that had made him give up, and even go insane in a few timelines. That was the worst of it, but the tiniest corner of Sans' mind wondered what it would do to _him_ if Papyrus started giving up, too.

He shut that bit away. Since when had he started caring again? The small skeleton supposed it had been when the RESET glitched and Papyrus had asked him about being back in Snowdin. Despite the overwhelming thought that _nothing ever mattered,_ he'd begun hoping again.

That wasn't okay. If he let himself hope...the consequences of next RESET would be even worse. It was so much easier to give up and give in. After all, any attempt to fight back would just be erased.

Plus, no one except him and the kid would remember anything next RESET. When Chara either destroyed the world or Frisk regained control. Honestly, Sans wanted it to be second option. Maybe this timeline, he could save his friends from the genocidal Fallen Child and help Frisk RESET back to a Pacifist timeline. That would be the best realistic outcome.

Sans was distracted from his musings by snow smacking him in the skull. The skeleton blinked, looking around as his eye lights dimmed and brightened again, readjusting the scene. At some point he'd strolled straight into the blizzard a ways down the street from his and Papyrus' house. He'd been walking a while-he was exactly in the center of the never-ending storm, and the bare bones of his arms, as well as his white T-shirt, were covered in snow.

Sans shivered, although that had nothing to do with the cold; he could hardly feel it. But not even four paces in front of him was a place he hated, and knew very well.

Then suddenly, something blinked out. Sans stumbled backwards, his eyesight temporarily blackening. When he looked up, the worst possible sight was before him.

Papyrus knelt in the snow, arms out for a hug as the human slashed their knife across his neck, ripping the red scarf. His skull tumbled down to the ground as Sans' brother dissolved into dust.

Sans screamed, a long incomprehensible sound, as he scrambled forwards. Chara flashed him a sinister smile as they disappeared into the snow, but Sans couldn't have cared if he tried. He toppled forwards onto his knees, getting dust all over his hoodie, but _not freaking caring,_ as Sans picked up the torn red scarf with shaking hands.

"no, no, not like this, please…" His voice cracked as he wrapped the scarf around his neck, the bones of his hands getting gritty with dust. How had this happened-Papyrus was supposed to be back at their house! Chara must've gotten here unnoticed-how-how could they do this once again?

"is this fun to you?" he screamed after the demon. "is this your game? do you like pain? i'll-i'll show you pain! you're _gonna have a bad time!"_

His voice broke and shattered once again, and then all at once, he was on his feet four paces from the place of his brother's death. Except-no footsteps, no dust. It might as well have never happened.

Sans took a step back, fear racing through him. Had he hallucinated? That seemed to be the only explanation: Chara hadn't arrived Underground yet, and Papyrus was safe at their house with Alphys and Undyne. He wasn't even wearing his hoodie today. But no.

Sans' hands fluttered at the ends of the ripped red scarf draped over his white shirt.

He slipped it off and stared at it. It was still coated in a layer of dust. Sans swallowed.

The only explanation there was, was that for a moment, he'd been shoved into another timeline before the universe corrected its mistake and pulled him back. Jeez, this RESET was more messed up than he'd thought. The timeline must be really unstable, if it was pulling in other bits of timelines and throwing out things native to it. Which was bad.

Unstable timelines...Sans remembered one or two _really_ strange timelines that he'd taken to calling Alternate Universes, or AUs, since according to his calculations, the RESETting timelines had become unstable and therefore transported its inhabitants to another place. Some AUs were alright, or even entertaining-though Sans would thoroughly dunk Frisk if they ever mentioned that one timeline where he'd run around in armor and a bandanna and called himself 'The Magnificent Sans'.

At any rate, this timeline seemed to be partially breaking down, but it wasn't doing anything to protect its inhabitants. As soon as he saw Frisk- _not_ Chara-he'd have to get them to jump timelines, preferably to a Pacifist route.

Sans tucked the dusty scarf into one of the pockets of his shorts. He didn't want to look at it any more than he needed to. The young skeleton started towards home. He'd put the scarf in that room under the house, the one immune to RESETs.

As it turned out, he didn't need to walk more than a few steps before figures became visible through the heavy snow.

"BROTHER?" a familiar voice called. "IS THAT YOU?"

Relief flooded through Sans at the confirmation that his brother was still alive. "yeah. hey pap. alphys. undyne. " His hand was still clenched around the scarf from the other timeline.

"SANS!" Papyrus hurried through the flurry of white. "WHY DID YOU TELEPORT, BROTHER? IT'S COLD OUT HERE! YOU DIDN'T EVEN BRING YOUR JACKET!"

Now that he mentioned it, Sans became aware that he was shaking like a leaf in the wind from the cold, which didn't entirely discourage the snow from cling onto him. He brushed the snow off one of his scapulas, wincing from the cold. "oops."

"What's your deal, punk?" Undyne yelled, making her way to stand next to Papyrus. Sans withdrew, taking a step back. So hoping that they wouldn't be angry was a bust. Who was he kidding, anyway? Of course they'd be mad.

Alphys tapped Undyne's arm, but the fish warrior wasn't deterred. Alphys stood partially in front of Undyne, as if to try and distract her. It would have been funny, if Sans had not been busy cringing away.

Papyrus reached out and Sans flinched-the tall skeleton looked almost exactly like he had a moment ago, when opening his arms to Chara. "SANS-"

"You can freaking _teleport?_ SERIOUSLY? You _never_ said that!" Undyne ranted.

Sans blinked. Was that...all?

"lemme get this straight," he said slowly. "that is the only reason you're yelling at me?"

Undyne rolled her eye. "DUH! What else is there?"

Sans raised an eyebrow equivalent. "you don't care that i just told you about the…" he took another step back, cursing his weakness as the words seemed to stick in his throat uselessly. "the…"

Undyne blinked, her tirade momentarily forgotten. "What? No! Of course not! Why would we even blame you, anyway?"

Sans looked away. "not telling you, and not...saving you."

Papyrus' teeth pressed together in the equivalent of setting your lips in a thin line. How could he let his brother think that? Alphys glanced towards the younger skeleton sympathetically. She could remember a time when she blamed herself for those same reasons, albeit for another cause.

Undyne frowned. "No way! That's not your fault! And you fought the evil human, right? They even got past _me!_ You're like nineteen! It's not fair to expect you to do everything."

"eighteen, now," Sans mumbled, but the forceful words eased something inside him. Before he could react, Papyrus had picked him up.

"hey! pap! let me down!"

Both Undyne and Alphys burst out laughing at Sans' weak protests-yeah, sure, Sans did _kind of_ like it when Papyrus carried him, but not when other people were around.

"SANS. I AM GOING TO CARRY YOU WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT," Papyrus deadpanned. "YOU ARE PRACTICALLY FREEZING, AND IF YOU THINK I WILL LET YOU WALK HOME AFTER WHAT YOU JUST TOLD US, YOU ARE WRONG."

Papyrus shifted his weight, and in a sudden fit of observance, noted his brother's odd _tininess_ once again. Sans was way too light for someone his age-how could he not have noticed? Despite being eye level with Sans, Papyrus turned his gaze off to the side. "WHEN WE SAID YOU ARE NO LONGER ALONE, BROTHER, WE MEANT IT. I'M SORRY I'VE BEEN SUCH A TERRIBLE BIG BROTHER."

What. Was. That.

Sans grabbed Papyrus' jawbone and gently turned the older skeleton's face towards his.

" _no."_

"WHA-"

"pap, you kept me _alive_ through timelines, okay? every time i was about to give up, you were there. my one HOPE is _you,_ pap. so don't _ever_ say you're a bad brother again, or i'll have a **bone** to pick with you." Sans stared straight into his older brother's face, as serious as he could ever be.

"O-OKAY." Papyrus' eye sockets briefly glowed orange. Sans' blue left eye burst to life.

Alphys let out a quiet squeal as the brothers glowed at each other; her finely-tuned anime-esque cuteness radar was overloading from the pure sweetness of the scene. Even Undyne let a grin slip.

Then Papyrus' eye sockets blinked of and he scowled. "I CANNOT BELIEVE I MISSED THAT PUN."

Sans laughed. It felt good. " **tibia** honest, i was gettin' kinda worried there."

Papyrus groaned, starting to walk back in the direction of the brothers' house. "I WAS _GOING_ TO LET YOU HAVE _ONE._ BUT TWO PUNS IS TOO MUCH."

Sans winked. "nah. i had to do two, otherwise the first woulda been **bone** ly."

Papyrus stopped. "I WILL DROP YOU."

"but i'm already **bone** cold," Sans teased.

"OR DISOWN YOU."

"you're lucky i've got **thick skin** , bro, or that wouldn't be very nice. as it is, it just **goes right through me** , don't worry."

"SANS, STOP."

"you're trying not to laugh."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT."

Relenting, Sans let his big brother carry him all the way back to their house, the gentle rocking slowly easing him into sleep.

* * *

 **That's a few plot points, some fluff, puns, and skelebro feels thrown in for good measure!**

 **Sorry about the length about this chapter, school is my only reason. I just switched schools and it's taking me awhile to adjust.**

 **Ooh, unstable timelines! And a few AU references, too! Very, very, interesting...Oh, and if you don't understand the skeleton eye glow thing, it's a headcanon of zarla from Deviantart. Basically it's a calming mechanism, and their eyes also glow when they feel strong emotion, or at least that's my version of it.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive** **criticism** **are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**


	8. Unstable And Scar-y Circumstances

**Here we are, my friends, with yet another chapter and yet another long delay!**

 **I apologize, truly I do. It's been a trying month, and will probably continue to be a trying few months. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure I got a good mark on my French test. And there's Music class tomorrow!**

 **I own nothing except the plot. Undertale belongs to Toby Fox**

* * *

There was something strange lurking at the edges of Frisk's vision. Red and black billowed inwards across their line of sight, making them dizzy. They took a mental step back and blinked.

Frisk almost growled once they realized what had happened. Chara was killing more and more monsters, forcing Frisk deeper into the trap of their own mind. The young pacifist struggled.

After who knew how long, Frisk managed a glimpse through Chara's eyes, enough to see the silver knife slash across a Whimsun.

After that, Frisk started sinking deeper. It was starting over. Once again, they would watch, powerless, as that same knife brought down every friend and family member they'd ever had. Once again, the nightmare of Genocide would repeat.

 _Shut up,_ Chara told them, annoyed.

 _You…_ Frisk tried to respond, but Chara's growing control suffocated them. _You can't...can't do this…_

 _What happened to the defiance, hmm? Weren't you going to stop me? Or did you just realize how_ _weak_ _you are, and how_ _useless_ _you'll always be?_ Chara taunted. _I can feel your DETERMINATION siphoning into_ _my_ _SOUL. You're giving up, Frisk. You cannot resist._

 _I have...I have to...warn...warn them…_

 _You'll_ _never_ _SAVE them. We will live on repeat, our Genocide transpiring as eternal punishment for your sins._

*You feel your sins crawling on your back.

Frisk resisted, trying to take control like they had with Flowey. Nothing happened.

They attempted to call out for help.

But nobody came.

 _And no one will come for you, Frisk. Ever._

 _That's...not…_

 _Oh, but it is. You are the worst kind of unwanted._

Frisk couldn't feel, couldn't see.

*Your DETERMINATION is faltering.

* * *

Sans was peaceful, for once, Alphys noticed as she and Undyne trailed behind the brothers. Papyrus set Sans down on the couch with a rueful smile, before disappearing upstairs. Immediately Undyne towards Alphys, who felt herself blush.

"Alphy? What's the deal with this? Do you even believe it?"

Alphys sputtered, flustered by the familiar nickname. "W-w-well, y-yeah, I g-g-guess. I-it's the o-o-only thing that m-makes sense right n-now," she stuttered, focusing on the sleeping skeleton on the lumpy couch rather than her girlfriend.

"Ngah!"

Alphys flinched back a bit when Undyne slammed the newly summoned cyan spear into the floor. Undyne was so distracted, though, that the tip barely dented the carpet. "Sorry, Alphy," the warrior apologized. "It's just...I can't freaking believe that we've been living on loop for years and NO ONE told us! And there's some freaking DEMON in this, too!"

"It m-might've been o-o-out of kindness," Alphys suggested. "L-l-look what the R-RESETS did t-to S-S-Sans and F-Frisk. A-and t-the C-Chara t-thing t-t-too."

"STILL!" Undyne sat down angrily on the floor, the cyan spear dissipating. The royal guard sighed as she laid eyes on the couch once again. "Jeez, I never thought I'd feel sorry for that guy after he rigged one of Papyrus' bones to spray ketchup everywhere, but I guess it's a day of surprises, huh, Alphy?"

Alphys started-had it really only been less than a few hours since Sans told them about the RESETs? She stumbled over her answer: "O-oh, y-y-yeah, I g-guess."

The private talk was interrupted by Papyrus coming down the stairs with Sans' blue hoodie. Alphys held in an _awwww_ as he carefully arranged the sweater around his brother's sleeping form. The skeletons' brotherly affection seemed straight of of an adorable anime. Like that one where-

"DR. ALPHYS?"

Once again, Alphys blinked and reacquainted herself with her surroundings. She went red again when she realized that Papyrus had been talking to her. "S-sorry, what? A-a-and just Alphys i-is fine," she added.

"I JUST ASKED IF YOU WANTED ANYTHING TO EAT," Papyrus explained, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Alphys shook her head, relieved that she hadn't missed anything important.

"Hey, can we wake up Sans now?" Undyne wanted to know. "Don't know about you punks, but I think we should figure out how to get through this genocide thing before the human comes."

"I-I think s-so, too," Alphys agreed.

Papyrus glanced down at his younger brother. "OKAY, BUT...GENTLY."

Undyne wasted no time. "Hey, Sans! Wake up!" She rapped on his ribs lightly with one fist.

The small skeleton immediately shot up, eye glowing blue. Alphys yelped and Undyne dove out of the way as an enormous dragon skull-thing materialized behind Sans, opened its jaws, and spat a white hot laser beam.

"OW! What the heck was that for?" Undyne yelled, rubbing her arm, which had been given a small burn.

Sans' eyes cleared, and the skull disappeared. Alphys noticed the the laser hadn't left a mark on the furniture or house.

"SANS, DON'T PULL BLASTERS oN OUR FRIENDS," Papyrus chided, moving closer.

"oh, uh, sorry." Sans looked uncomfortable. He glanced over at Undyne. "huh. LV 3. i guess royal guard duty isn't always pretty."

Undyne glared. "How'd you know that? And what even was that thing? What does LV have to do with it?"

Sans probably would've bit his lip if he had one. "uh, judge thing. The 'thing' is called a gaster blaster. it'd usually only do one damage, but i've got this this thing called karmic retribution. karma poison. It reacts to your LV. it's, uh, a lot more impressive against chara."

That silenced everyone for a moment before Papyrus spoke. "BROTHER, WHY DID YOU SUMMON THE GASTER BLASTER, ANYWAY?"

Sans shrugged into his hoodie uneasily. "kinda 'cause someone touched me, uh, there. when i fight the kid, i usually pass out. then when i'm sleeping…" He drew a line with his finger from his right scapula to his left hip bone. Alphys gasped.

Papyrus and Undyne both looked shocked silent. Sans adopted a vaguely surprised expression.

"huh. it's phantom paining more than usual, weird…" Sans tentatively lifted up his shirt a little and his grin froze.

"would ya look at that. this RESET is getting weirder by the minute."

Alphys leaned forwards in stunned horror, her eyes pinned on the deep, splintered scar beneath slicing upwards through the smaller skeletons' ribs. Papyrus freaked out.

"SANS OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?"

The taller skeleton's phalanges glowed green with healing magic as he sat next to his brother. Sans laughed forcedly.

"don't worry, papyrus, it doesn't really hurt. just a scar, i guess."

Sans hesitantly poked a finger into the cracked bone before retracting the phalange with a pained hiss. "okay then. no touching the death wound. got it." That time he didn't resist Papyrus' attempts to heal him.

The magic did nothing. Sans looked curiously at Undyne. "this is a kinda weird request, but can you lift up your shirt a little?"

Alphys immediately flushed red at the thought. Undyne also seemed to be close to the same response. "What? No way!"

Sans huffed. "well, i want to know whether i'm the only one with a death scar, and it'd be kinda hard to get a pap's since his is right under his skull." The skeleton's voice was notably quieter near the end of the sentence.

Undyne scowled. "Fine. Where's my wound?"

Sans stared at the wall as he answered. "you get cut in half."

"Gruesome!" Undyne acknowledged, pulling at the edge of her tank top. "Whoa...what the heck?"

Alphys disregarded her blushy stuttering discomposure in favor or examining the line across the lower part of Undyne's stomach. It wasn't as deep or pronounced as Sans' was-probably because the royal guard actually had flesh and organs underneath a thick layer of protective scales-but there was a long dent that looked a bit like a long-healed wound that hadn't quite been set properly. Strange.

The royal scientist watched as Papyrus reached up and probed underneath his scarf. Judging by the wince, she assumed he had a scar as well. "Do I...um, d-do I…?"

It was a rather odd question to ask, and Alphys was grateful when Sans caught on. "nah. told you before, you were the head of evacuation. saved a bunch of monsters by hiding them in your true lab."

Alphys flinched back. "S-so in those t-timelines, e-e-everyone k-knew?"

Sans shrugged. "they were more relieved to have survived, honestly. and people kinda admired you after so no one really cared. we've all been the leader of this place at some point. 'cept me, that is."

"Why not?" Undyne asked curiously. "If you were, like, the only one left, wasn't there no other choice?"

The way she phrased it sounded rather rude, but Sans didn't seem to notice. "i'm not cut out for something like that. they don't deserve me," he said softly.

"BROTHER…" Papyrus had tuned back into the conversation in time to give Sans a much needed hug. This time Alphys even caught Undyne smiling at the brotherly affection.

Seeing as Sans was a bit involved at the moment, Alphys took it upon herself to wonder how in the world she'd ever been a good leader to the monsters of the Underground. She was anxious, dishonest, and willing to deceive anyone. Horrible, basically. A horrible leader.

"you did pretty good, actually," Sans said, as if reading her mind. "then again, i've pretty much seen everything by now. whenever the timeline gets to unstable-like now-it'll usually plop us into the timelines of another universe for a while until it fixes itself up. our universe is called 'undertale'. it's basically the classic, original one. There's also underswap, underfell, outertale, horrortale, flowerfell, that one place where everyone sang all the time-yeah. you get the point. There's a lot of other _us_ lookalikes in those other universes and timelines. my guess on how i remember everything is that my mind travels through timelines while your guys' get wiped. and then this time it glitched, and your minds from last time carried over here."

"Huh. Cool," Undyne said. She then remembered something Sans had said earlier while he was explaining timelines and started berating him about her 'Undying' form, as he'd called it.

Alphys' mood was significantly improved by Sans' little speech. She figured that her other-timeline doubles may be better equipped for heroism. Probably.

Papyrus and Undyne seemed content to ask Sans about things that had happened in other timelines, although Alphys noted that Papyrus was steering conversation away from mentions of their deaths and the newly found scars. He was most likely trying to avoid another panic attack-Alphys could admit freely that seeing the usually unshakable younger skeleton break down was disorienting. Alphys, for her part, was content to listen. But just as she thought of something that sent her mind into a panic-

"hey. wait." Sans stopped the chatter. "this is gonna be a bad timeline, remember? do you think we can-you know, do something? save people?"

Alphys smiled, new adrenaline bursting beneath her scales. A goal. Something she could do, people she could help. For real, without duping anybody.

Perhaps this was what those other Alphyses in those other timelines had felt.

* * *

Somewhere deep in the Ruins, another monster fell to the swipe of a knife.

* * *

 **Ooh, intense! To summarize: Frisk is faltering against Chara, the monsters have more questions for Sans, elements of other timelines are barging into the current one, and Alphys is doubting herself-just a little.**

 **Never fear, my lovely readers! I will back, hopefully soon, and with another chapter. I do feel obliged to thank Ulrich362 for their many kind reviews-I'm glad you like it! This is my first attempt at a long story after all-you'd think there would be more criticism.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	9. Rivers Of Mysteries

**Woohoo! I'm not dead! Never fear, I have lived another day and returned with-gasp! Could it be? Another chapter? It is!**

 **There is no excuse for the lateness of this chapter. I am so sorry. I know I hate it when people delay their updates. Apologies, friends.**

 **Here are my excuses: I just started at a new school, and the scheduling is way different, plus there's much, much more homework. And writer's block. God, I hate writer's block. It's the bane of my existence, and has been plaguing me. Therefore, I'm sad to say, the waits for chapters will be getting longer, although I hope not as long as that last wait. There's another reason for this too-we're finally at the beginning of the real action! I wonder how this timeline will be different? Hmm...**

 **Completely unrelated-Holding On by Simple Plan is a fantastic song to describe Sans and Papyrus' relationship. Just imagine that it's Sans talking to himself and trying to pretend he's okay during the verses and the chorus is him talking about Papyrus, and I guarantee you will cry.**

 **Last One Standing by the same band would be a great soundtrack for the Judgement Hall battle, as well.**

 **Okay then! Now that we've spoken (typed) about music, let us begin our lovely long-awaited chapter!**

 **Disclaimer: Toby Fox owns Undertale. I simply steal and torture his characters once in a while. (Oh, there's just a little violence in this chapter, too. Reader discretion is advised and all that)**

* * *

Hours later, four monsters exited the house of the skeleton brothers with purpose clear in their minds. They looked at each other, nodded resolutely, and went their separate ways.

Alphys and Undyne bought a ride from the Riverperson and stood in silence. They each had an important role in the plan, and they knew that if they messed this up, everything would go to ashes. The Riverperson hummed merrily.

"Tralala. Beware the dark shadow of red. Tralala."

"What was that?" Undyne asked. The Riverperson was wise, and always seemed to know things they shouldn't. Perhaps they knew something.

"Take care, do not succumb to the sleep of the golden jewel. A shadow of red likes to repeat history. Tralala."

Repeat history. The rest of the ride was silent until Undyne got off.

"Thanks. Here's some gold." Undyne tossed a couple gold pieces onto the boat. The Riverperson seemed to smile.

"Tralala. Take your amulets of yellow. You will need them soon enough. Tralala." The coins rolled off the boat and into the water.

Undyne rolled her eye. Well, that was a total waste. She called out to Alphys. "You remember, Alphy?"

The royal scientist nodded shakily. Undyne let her shark tooth grin through as she raced away. She needed to look as Normal and Unaffected as possible. Doing her part was impossible until Alphys and Sans did theirs, but she could start.

Undyne stopped. In front of her was Gerson's little shop, filled to the brim with knickknacks and useless little thingamabobs. The fish monster half smiled. She'd spent a lot of her childhood here, following the old turtle around until he laughed and threatened to chase her away with his legendary hammer, the one he'd used in the war. Good times.

Gerson made his way to the shop counter and beamed at her. "Wahahaha! Well, if it isn't my favorite urchin, Undyne!"

Undyne grinned back, playfully summoning a cyan spear. "That's Captain Undyne to you, punk!"

They laughed together. Undyne's heart sank when she thought of what she'd have to ask him.

"What brings you here, Captain?" Gerson humored her. "There a robber on the loose? Petty arson? Or did you just want to hear some more of this old turtle's stories? Wahaha!"

Undyne sighed. "Nah. I'm here for a favor. I need you to put up a big screen in that cave in the center of Waterfall. People need to see…" She hesitated. "Something."

Gerson raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah. Uh...I think I've got some gold!" Undyne dug in her pocket and silently cursed as she realized she'd wasted the last of it on the Riverperson. She thrust her hand in the other pocket, curled her hand around a few coins triumphantly, and brought them out.

Undyne blinked. They were the exact same coins she'd thrown for the Riverperson.

Okay. Well, if the crazy guy who took random people where they wanted to go in their fancy boat was magical, who was Undyne to judge? Besides, it wasn't like that was the weirdest thing that had happened today.

She set down the gold on the counter. "Here you are, you old coot! Ten G! Is that enough?"

Gerson chuckled. "Wahaha! Well, I'll never turn away donations, but between you and me…" He leaned in secretively. "I would've done it for free!"

"Hey, you scammed me!" Undyne mock-glared when he dropped the gold in a pouch. To anyone else, that glare would make them run away screaming, but Gerson had seen it too many times.

"Consider it payment for the times you beat up my mailman. Wahaha!" Gerson grinned at her.

"That was one time!" Undyne argued.

"Scoot along now, _Captain,"_ he waved her away. "Wahaha! I'll have in the screen ready in half an hour, so you'd better get the citizens together!"

"Ngah!," Undyne muttered, giving the old turtle a fake salute as she sprinted away. He was right, of course. She needed to get all the monsters of Waterfall into that cave...whichever cave the screen was in. And she'd need to get directions to Alphys and Papyrus.

"Let's do this," Undyne murmured.

* * *

Meanwhile, the skeleton brothers were still in Snowdin. Sans had taken one look at a clock and informed Papyrus that the human would come in less than two hours. They needed to evacuate Snowdin immediately. Which was what Papyrus was doing.

While the monsters of Snowdin Town were not especially partial to listening to the older skeleton brother, they would at least hear him out once they heard that Undyne was giving him the orders.

"JUST GATHER IN THE CENTER OF SNOWDIN, BY THE GYFTMAS TREE," Papyrus told everyone he could. "THEN, ONCE UNDYNE GIVES THE DIRECTIONS, YOU'LL GO TO A CAVE IN WATERFALL WHERE THEY'LL BE PROOF OF THE NEED TO EVACUATE. I PROMISE!"

Luckily, a lot of Snowdin listened to him. It took just over half an hour to make sure that each and every resident of the cold town was milling around in front of the Gyftmas tree. Papyrus checked his phone for the eighth time and just about let out a sigh of relief.

"OKAY, SNOWDIN!" he called. "GO TO TEMMIE VILLAGE! THAT'S WHERE UNDYNE HAS SET UP YOUR EVIDENCE! AND GO QUICKLY! DON'T TAKE ANYTHING YOU DON'T NEED!" he cautioned.

"Where will you be?" somebody asked.

Papyrus took a deep breath. "MY BROTHER AND I ARE STAYING HERE FOR A LITTLE WHILE. DON'T WORRY, WE WILL FOLLOW YOU SOON."

"How do we know this isn't all a ploy to get us out of our houses?" someone else yelled.

Sans materialized behind the mob. "it isn't." Papyrus almost NYEH'd a laugh when everybody turned at once, craning their heads to see the person speaking. "if you don't get out now, each and every one of you will die. this is not a joke. papyrus and i are risking our lives by staying behind. if you go to the temmie village _now,_ you'll see why. we don't have much time. **go** _ **now**_ **."**

Papyrus has never appreciated his brother's creepy ability to blacken his eye sockets and speak in a terrifying voice until this moment. Until now, most of Snowdin had never seen Sans like that. It got them listening pretty fast.

In no time, Snowdin was successfully evacuated. Sans shortcutted behind them for a little while to make sure they were actually leaving, and soon teleported back to Papyrus. "you remember what you gotta do, pap?"

The older skeleton nodded. He had been rolling the words over in his head ever since Sans had told him what to say. "I CANNOT BELIEVE I MAKE A PUN. YOU ARE MAKING THIS UP."

"nope. and it's a pretty good one, too."

"NYEH!"

"remember, the script is different if i can't get them to hide behind the lamp."

"YES."

"okay, the human should be coming in...around half an hour," Sans confirmed, looking into the shop to check the clock inside. "hide somewhere. there's gonna be a whole lot of chaos soon."

"DO NOT WORRY, BROTHER," Papyrus reassured, giving the younger skeleton a spontaneous hug. "YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN THESE RESETS ANY MORE. WE WILL SAVE EVERYONE."

"heh. thanks, bro. means a lot. let's go."

* * *

Chara was getting annoyed. It had taken so long to get Toriel on her knees and now Frisk was delaying it!

 _Shut up,_ the Fallen Child hissed.

 _You don't have to hurt anyone!_ Frisk pleaded.

Chara ignored the nagging voice their stolen SOUL belonged to. Instead, they dragged their knife spitefully through Toriel's chest. Frisk let out a sob as the Boss Monster SOUL floated out of the former queen.

Chara stabbed it without hesitation. The SOUL quivered and cracked, and both it and Toriel burst into dust.

Frisk was inconsolable. They reached out desperately with imagined hands and tried to save their surrogate mother, but it was too late. Chara giggled at their helplessness.

 _Now, let's go mess with those skeletons, hmm?_ they laughed. _I want to get Papyrus as soon as possible. I wonder if we can get Sans to watch? That might make our battle more interesting._

 _Don't! Please!_ Frisk begged.

 _You forfeited your free will a long time ago, Frisk. Now it's time to reap your reward._

Chara strode out of the musty Ruins into the snow. They scowled at the wind-Frisk's sweater, while warm, wasn't made for such cold weather. Chara would have to kill Snowdin's inhabitants quickly, to get to Waterfall, which was slightly better. Plus, the demon couldn't _wait_ to find out what was causing the utterly _wrong_ feeling of this timeline. Perhaps they were in an alternate universe. That had happened before. Then again, Toriel had been exactly the same as always.

The thick branch behind Chara snapped. They grinned sickeningly. _Oh, I wonder if we'd be able to kill him right off! Maybe we can do it with Papyrus! Kill them both in one go!_

 _I won't let you!_ Frisk declared.

 _Does that mean you disagree? Then I'll be sure to do that sometime. The reactions would be hilarious._

 _I'll freeze up! I'll make sure my body can't move!_

 _The way you did with Toriel?_

Frisk was silent. Good.

Chara turned and inspected the branch, pretending to be surprised. It was always fun to mess with Sans.

" **H u m a** **n.** "

Oh, he was here early! That was new.

" **D o n ' ?** "

Chara turned around before he could ask it of them. This time, Sans stood in front of them, the swirling snow obstructing his infuriating grin. He held out a hand.

They reached out and grasped it, squeezing as hard as they could. After all, the skeleton only had one HP. Death by handshake would be hilarious.

Weird, there was no whoopi cushion this time. What could that mean? It didn't matter. Chara very carefully pulled out their knife, making sure it was out of his vision.

 _Sans! Look out!_ Frisk cried out.

Chara slammed the knife into his shoulder. To the surprise of everyone, the skeleton didn't immediately dust.

His left eye socket burst into flame. "so that's how it's gonna be, huh? alright, then."

Their SOUL was yanked out, turned blue, and smashed against a tree before you could say 'genocide'. Chara stumbled to their feet. They managed to keep their grip on the knife, in the process pulling it out of Sans' scapula. The skeleton's perma-smile froze as he lifted his left hand out of his pocket.

 _Bring it on._

Bones shot up through the snow and appeared on either side of Chara. They dodged, mentally snarling at Frisk, who was doing everything they could to keep their body absolutely still. They lunged forwards and swiped at Sans.

He ducked out of the way at the last second, tossing them backwards again-straight into a Gaster Blaster. Chara hissed in frustration and pain as the blaster nicked them. It didn't hurt as much as it did in Judgement Hall, since their LOVE was lower, but it wasn't exactly rainbows and roses either. Ignoring the Karmic Retribution slowing eating at their painfully low HP, Chara slashed again.

The knife hit empty air as Sans dodged to the side. He winked. "dontcha worry, frisk. this run is gonna be better."

Then the comedian disappeared into the snow.

* * *

 **Ooh, suspense! We're finally beginning the real action! Woot woot!**

 **If anyone's wondering how Sans survived, that'll be addressed in the next chapter.**

 **Chara's a freak, huh? Writing from their perspective is a challenge, but I think I did okay. I apologize it I got Chara or Frisk's gender wrong-I tried to do them gender neutral, but I see them both as female, so their might be a few female pronouns in there. If you see any I missed, could you please tell me so I can change them? Thanks.**

 **And I even got in a little 'creepy Riverperson being creepy'. Yay.**

 **Thank you, thank you, a million thank yous to everyone reviewing, following, and favoriting my writing. I am truly grateful. As stated before, this is my first attempt at a multi-chapter story, and you guys keep me going. Thank you all so much for your sweet compliments and amazing feedback. You're all fantastic.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	10. A Cause Of New HOPE

**Well. I'm a freaking hypocrite. I say the next chapter will be up soon and I take forever. I say the next chapter will take forever and it's up within a few days.**

 **NYYYYYYEEEEEEEHHHHH.**

 **Whatever. I don't even know how I got this little shorty filler bit out to y'all so soon. I've got ests in Music and Math, French homework, and Drama club...Ugh. Much work.**

 **Anyway, yes, this is mostly filler and it's short. And right after I said we were getting to the action, too. BUT! Although it's not the best chapter I could give you, there are a few things that had to be done soon, so I did them all in one chapter. And after last chapter, I couldn't just leave y'all in suspense, now could I?**

 **Also, I've been thinking about Undertale and its AUs. Once this fic is done, I might start up one with the cast of the Classic Universe, minus Sans, (although he'll still be in it a lot, since he's my favoriyte, just not part of the main adventure) and plus Ink!Sans, Error!Sans, and possibly Core!Frisk. I do like AUs...and DustTale and FloweyPossessed!Sans are underdone in my opinion. Hmm...Thoughts on this? Yeah, it's ridiculously overdone, but I have a few ideas...**

 **But! Back to the chapter. Here you are, friends!**

 **Undertale belongs to Toby Fox. I own zip ziddly** ** _nada_** **.**

* * *

Alphys dragged her monitor out of her lab in Hotland. Luckily the equipment was small and relatively light, so she should be able to make it to Temmie Village easily.

Her predictions came true as Alphys arrived at the village. The temmies were mixing with a crowd of several monsters-the population of Snowdin and almost every Waterfall monster. The royal scientist caught the eye of many. Alphys winced at the whispers and stares as she made her way over to Undyne.

"Hey, Alphy!" Undyne greeted. "Got the tech stuff?"

"Y-yes," Alphys affirmed. "I j-just need to r-reroute the chemical path-"

"Back it up, I don't speak science," Undyne interrupted. "Do you need any help setting this thing up or what?"

"U-u-um, yeah. I-if you c-could just…"

The other monsters left the two alone, with only the occasional question. Soon they had the equipment set up.

"H-hey, everyone!" Alphys cried, flinching as monsters' eyes turned to her.

"Yo, what's all this about?" Monster Kid asked. Of course, that was when the mob of monsters started spouting their questions.

"Why're we all here-"

"We had to evacuate-"

"So did we, numbskull-"

"That weirdo skeleton said we'd get answers here-"

Undyne cut them off. "Hey! Everyone shut up!"

The monsters grudgingly obliged.

"We have a really good reason for bringing everyone here!" Undyne yelled. "And when we tell you, _no one_ can freak out, because we have this under control. Got it, punks?"

There was a smattering of muttered agreements, and even more worried voices talking over each other.

"Be quiet!" Undyne scolded. "Now, here's the thing…" She paused dramatically. "We have a very good reason to believe there's a human in the Ruins."

Cue panic. Also hysteria. Alphys shrank away from the mob of monsters-this was much worse than she'd been expecting.

"I told you not to panic!" Undyne called over the shrieks of terror.

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" someone asked suspiciously.

Undyne smacked her palm against her forehead. "Ngah! I _just_ said we're gonna show you evidence!"

At that, Alphys' phone beeped. She glanced down, and, eyes wide, shook Undyne's arm to get her attention. "P-Papyrus said t-the human's c-coming out of t-the Ruins n-now!"

"And we're gonna show you footage of the human now!" Undyne continued. Alphys quickly connected their equipment to the camera in Snowdin, and the screen set up against the cave wall was illuminated by a shaky picture of Snowdin forest.

For a few moments, it was silent and still in the Temmie Village cavern, and the footage of the snow swirled soundlessly on the wall. Alphys reviewed the plan in her head-show the footage just long enough to convince the monsters that there was a real human threatening them, then shut it off and lead the escapees to her laboratory. As much as Alphys hated having to reveal her own mistakes-the Amalgamations-it was the least she could do for all these monsters if she didn't want to see them die.

Just as Sans had said, the doors to the Ruins slowly started creaking open. A collective gasp went through the crowd.

Alphys' breath caught as she recognized the small shape. That blue and purple sweater, the fluffy brown hair-it was Frisk. But no-this wasn't their Pacifist friend. This was Chara, who would murder them all without a second thought. And had already, according to Sans.

The cave was still as they watched the tiny human make their way through the snow. Frisk-no, it was Chara-passed directly by the camera.

"Shut it off now," Undyne whispered to Alphys. Sans had made it clear that they should get going as soon as everyone was convinced of the danger.

Alphys started, and Undyne tried to help her shut down the equipment, but it was rather complicated. Then a young voice-Undyne remembered that voice from the few times she'd stayed in Snowdin-the Innkeeper's child-asked frightenedly, "Momma, what's Mr. Sans doing there?"

Undyne's head shot up, and, yes, she could make out a dark shape stalking the human-Frisk- _Chara._ She wanted to groan. Of course-Sans had made it clear that he and Papyrus were going to follow the 'script' as much as possible to throw off Chara and keep suspicion away. Apparently Sans was supposed to actually do his job and be a sentry.

Well, that wasn't good.

The citizens of Waterfall vaguely knew Sans-he had a sentry station there as well-but Snowdin's occupants stood in horrified silence as they watched the scene unfold. Alphys and Undyne were among them-this was where they'd find out if this was a Genocide run, as Sans had called it. He'd said that the differences were palpable.

It seemed to anyone not in the know that Sans had assumed that Chara was simply a weird-looking monster as he made himself known to the human. There was no sound in the recording, but Undyne assumed he'd said something before holding out his hand to shake. Chara grasped it firmly, a smile not quite reaching their eyes.

Monster Kid gasped loudly. "It has a knife!"

Several people screamed in horror as the human stabbed Sans in the shoulder. Undyne lurched forwards. _No!_ One HP. One HP. This was obviously not part of the 'script'-Sans was going to dust.

But to the shock of everyone, the skeleton seemed almost unharmed by the injury. Even through the grainy footage, the image of Sans' left eye socket bursting into blue and gold flames was clear.

Chara/Frisk's red SOUL was pulled out of their chest, turned bright blue, and used to toss them backwards into a tree. Undyne watched, shocked, as the battle commenced, using blue magic, bones, and those Blaster skulls, as well as unnatural dodging skills-she flashed back to when Sans had told her, Alphys, and Papyrus about fighting and killing Frisk/Chara (Charisk?) over and over in the final corridor-Judgement Hall, he'd called it. Now Undyne understood how that was possible. The teenaged skeleton had _skills._

In a blink, the fight was over, and Sans had disappeared. The footage shut off as Alphys yanked out a plug.

"We've got to get back!" Dogamy barked. "The human's gonna kill them! Sans and Papyrus stayed behind!"

"How can we abandon civilians?" Dogaressa added.

Undyne winced. She hated the idea of letting Chara come easily into the Underground with a passion, but Sans had made it clear that anyone standing in their way would be obliterated.

"The best thing you can do is keep the evacuated monsters monsters safe," the royal guard improvised. "After all, there's no one left back there except for Sans and Papyrus, and they can take care of themselves, as you just saw. They're coming now, too. And there's not _gonna_ be anyone left here once Ch-the human makes it to Waterfall, got it? We gotta get going as soon as Sans and Papyrus catch up."

"Where are we evacuating?" Doggo wondered.

Alphys swallowed nervously. "I-I-I know a p-place," she stuttered, gathering her limited confidence. "W-we'll a-a-all be s-safe there."

That answer apparently satisfied the crowd. Someone called out, "What are we waiting for, then?"

Another monster smacked them on the head. Alphys would have guessed they were from Snowdin based on their thick fur. "Sans and Papyrus, dingbat! The skeletons!"

"We should get going," Undyne interrupted. "They'll catch up. Come on, we're going to Hotland.

* * *

Sans stumbled out of a shortcut next to Papyrus, his hand instinctively clutching at his scapula. With his 1 HP, the younger skeleton wasn't really accustomed to pain, other than the few seconds of horrible agony that occurred after he was slashed open by Chara. Speaking of that, the long scar across his rib cage wasn't exactly happy with Sans' constant movement. Ouch.

"BROTHER!" Papyrus' alarmed tone made him wince. "YOU'RE HURT!"

"s'nothing," he panted-after all, if he hadn't dusted, it wasn't serious. "we're going off-script, bro-c'mon. let's see if we can get to waterfall 'fore alphys and undyne leave."

"SANS," Papyrus said sternly. "TAKE OFF YOUR HOODIE. I NEED TO HEAL YOU."

Knowing that arguing would just waste time, Sans held back a sigh and shrugged off the blue coat. The sight underneath made him blink. Chara's knife had mostly missed him, but there was a scratch along the top of his scapula-small, but just deep enough to nick off a point of HP.

How exactly was he not dead yet?

The shallow cut in the bone was soon healed effortlessly by Papyrus' light touch. Sans rolled back his shoulder to check how it felt. Good as new. Or, as fragile as usual. Both things had the same meaning.

Confused, Sans pulled up his stats. 1 ATK, 1 DEF...2/2 HP.

2/2.

Papyrus was just as speechless as Sans. Neither could remember a time where Sans had more than 1 HOPE. That was a fact of life. Sans was fragile. If someone pushed him, he would shatter. That was how it went.

But apparently not anymore.

2 HOPE...Sans was gaining HOPE. Gaining hope. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved, terrified, or overjoyed.

Papyrus made the choice for him. He wrapped both arms around Sans, lifted him up, and spun them both around, teasing a surprised laugh out of the teenaged skeleton. Once he started laughing, he couldn't stop. No longer a one-hit wonder. It didn't matter if his HP would probably go down again by next RESET, he had more HOPE. More HOPE, more hope. 2 HP.

"OH SANS, YOU'RE FINALLY GETTING MORE HP! I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU, BROTHER!" Papyrus beamed with pride. Sans grinned with more sincerity than he had in a long time.

"yeah, bro, guess i am. heh. looks like i'm taking another **stab** at this hope thing, huh?"

Papyrus set him down. "THAT WAS NOT FUNNY." Then the older skeleton brother realized what he had said. "WAIT, YOU WERE STABBED? WHAT HAPPENED?"

Sans quickly filled him in, confirming it was Chara, and that Undyne and Alphys had most likely convinced the monsters and were now on their way to Hotland to set up in Alphys' secret laboratory. He pulled on his hoodie and zipped it up, silently lamenting the new tear in the shoulder.

"let's go," he decided, grabbing Papyrus' hand before stumbling blindly into a shortcut.

* * *

 **Wouldja look at that? Haha! I keep trying to do other characters, but I also drag Sans back in at some point...Oops. Not really disappointed over here.**

 **Quick recap: Alphys and Undyne brought the monsters of Snowdin and Waterfall to Temmie Village and showed them Chara through the camera near the Ruins. They couldn't shut off their equipment in time and** **conveniently** **saw Sans and Chara's little exchange. With everything going wrong, Sans forgot to whoopi cushion Chara and came at her from the front by accident. Chara went off-script by attempting to stab Sans, who dunked her a little before teleporting back to Papyrus, who healed him, and together they learned that Sans is gaining HOPE. They decide to go entirely off-script instead of playing along and take a shortcut to catch up to the evacuating monsters. And that's what you missed, on 'Untrue Resets'!**

 **I kind of imagined I was that guy who summarizes the previous episode on** ** _Glee,_** **ha.**

 _ **Now,**_ **the next chapter will actually take a while. Sorry about that. Tell me your thoughts on me doing a Multiverse story with Ink and Error, okay? That'd be great.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	11. I Bully-ve In You

**Hey everyone!**

 **Ugh, I have** ** _so much_** **homework. I actually had this chapter ready this morning, but school interrupted. School. The bane of my existence. Other than writer's block. Which was also a factor in this chapter's lateness.**

 **Anyway! Here we have a shorty new chapter, with none of the promised action because I am the most enormous hypocrite in the universe. Believe me, I know this very very well.**

 **There's also a flashback because WHY NOT? Also I was attacked by Papyrus feels, and I had to get them out** ** _somehow,_** **right? I also posted a one-shot called HOPE about Sans and Papyrus, (FEELS FEELS FEELS) so you read that, too, I guess. But the grammar issues are magnificent. I am too intimidated to attempt to correct it now. Maybe later.**

 **Also, TWENTY REVIEWS. TWENTY. (Twenty-one, but who's counting?) (I am) You guys are the freaking best. Ever.**

 **Trigger warning for mentions of bullying. And, you know, actual bullying. Which I thought was rather obvious by this chapter's pun-name.**

 **Also I just enjoy Little!Papyrus and Little!Sans, so bear with me, people. We're pretty much at the end of the 'evacuation' arc. Almost to that one chapter I've been waiting for. It contains [the contents of this sentence have been filtered due to spoilers].**

 **HAHA.**

 **Why would I be writing this if I owned Undertale. No, it belongs to Toby Fox. If I was The Master, I would** ** _totally_** **make this canon.**

* * *

Papyrus staggered into the Temmie Village, gripping Sans tightly. His brother's eyelights had blinked out like they always did when he was using lots of magic-which was rather unfortunate, actually, as they were kind of like glasses to the younger skeleton. Sure, it was kind of funny when Sans walked into a tree while they were training together, but it also worried Papyrus due to his brother's HP. Which was now, apparently, 2.

That was honestly kind of disconcerting. And actually, really...sad. Sans had never had more than one HOPE, at least that either of them could remember. And it was obvious that he was far from happy and hopeful during the RESETs. Was it just having people _believe_ and _help_ him that was elevating his brother's SOUL?

That idea made Papyrus' bones feel heavy.

Sans stood up straighter, his eyelights flickering on. "wow. i'm actually not tired."

Papyrus tried for a bit of brotherly snark. "YES, YES. YOUR SUPPLY OF MAGIC IS EVEN MORE RIDICULOUSLY LARGE AND FOR ONCE YOU'RE NEITHER SLEEPING NOR MAKING PUNS OR PLAGUING INNOCENT SKELETONS WITH INCIDENTAL MUSIC. HOORAY," he deadpanned.

Sans laughed, a genuine sound that made Papyrus smile a little. "come on, you hafta admit i'm not half bad at the trom **bone**."

"I STILL FIRMLY BELIEVE YOU PLAY IT ONLY FOR THE PUN OPPORTUNITIES."

" _Sans?"_ Grillby's hissing voice asked from off to the left.

 _What am I, overcooked spaghetti?_ the older skeleton brother muttered inwardly as residents of both Snowdin and Waterfall rushed the pair. Papyrus felt a thrill of warmth in his SOUL when Sans pressed closer to him. Although it might not seem like much, Sans kept making small gestures that made Papyrus feel like Sans was finally beginning to trust him more.

"Are you all right?"

"How did you get here so fast?"

"Man, you got freaking stabbed! That's bad-"

"-to the **bone,** yeah, i know," Sans interrupted. Not even attempting to hide it, Papyrus grinned, both at the impromptu pun and the glare Sans gave the offending monster, which was very clearly said, _watch your language._ Apparently, the evacuated monsters had watched Sans' off-script fight with Frisk-no, Chara. "answering all questions now-i'm fine, papyrus here is fine and kinda miffed at being ignored-" Papyrus started-his brother knew him too well! "-we took a few shortcuts, yeah i got stabbed but i got healed so that's all good. i'd guess you saw the human?"

"Yo, it was awesome, yo!" Papyrus recognized the excited no-armed dinosaur-style monster as Monster Kid, who usually hung around near the Gyftmas tree. "They were like, HI-YA! ANd then you were like, oh yeah? And then you were like, _ping! Shing! Shazam!_ With all the cool skulls and stuff, yo! And then they were like, _Slash!_ And you, like, dodged the whole thing and disappeared, yo!" MK illustrated their summary with sound effects and wild motions.

 _He did?_ Papyrus watched Sans carefully and detected a slight flinch at MK's words. "heh...guess you saw it all, huh?"

MK shook his head. "Well yeah, but yo, there was still no sound in the recording, but it was still super awesome, man!"

"oh. okay."

That sounded like more of a fight than Papyrus had thought. He'd assumed one had happened, based on Sans' injury and his eagerness to get out of Snowdin, but hearing the specifics (or at least, as close to specifics as MK got) made it real. Sans had probably done his whole shtick. Just thinking about it brought Papyrus into the past.

* * *

" _Hey, skeleton freak, stop running away!" Charlat yelled. The flames that formed his body crackled menacingly. Papyrus had never understood how the older brother of Sans' best friend, Grillby, could be so horrible._

" _Yeah, coward!" Yandi jeered. "You're gonna get beat anyway!"_

 _Thirteen-year-old Papyrus pressed himself against the back of the alleyway, wanting to melt into the brick. Middle school was hard...and Papyrus, who'd always struggled in the harder subjects like Science and Geography, was a natural target for bullies._

" _C-CAN'T WE JUST T-TALK THIS OUT?" he pleaded._

 _Nitah laughed meanly. "Ha! What a loser," she snickered._

 _Tears came to Papyrus' eyes as they advanced. "P-PLEASE? I-I BELIEVE IN YOU!"_

" _What an idiot."_

 _He felt a punch at his ribs and he stumbled back, forgetting he was flat against a wall. His head smashed into the brick, and Papyrus felt his vision temporarily go black, his head filled with static. Desperately, Papyrus unconsciously glanced to the entrance of the alleyway._

" _Hey, check it out. Bet he's waiting for someone to save him," Charlat said to the other two._

" _Who?" Yandi asked, gleeful at the chance to mock him. "Oh, I know! His weirdo little brother! The genius one who's always looking for attention."_

 _He wasn't. Sans had hated it when he'd had to be moved up a grade, but Papyrus couldn't say so. He felt like he was drowning._

" _Oh yeah," Charlat nodded. "He's in my loser brother's class. Those skeletons are both freaks." He mimicked Sans, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and hunching over to appear short, plastering on a wide, rude grin. "hey guys," he mocked Sans' dialect through the grin._

 _Anger filled Papyrus. They could insult him all they wanted, but Sans couldn't help his constant smile, or the way he talked. "BE...BE QUIET," he got out, struggling under Yandi's grasp._

" _Oh, we pissing you off?" Nitah leaned in. "Does it make you mad when we talk about your fat little mutant brother-"_

" _ya_ _know, it's pretty rude to talk about someone who's listening," came a carefree voice from the mouth of the alleyway._

 _Yandi, Charlat, and Nitah turned, letting go of Papyrus in the process. Sans stood framed in the darkness at the alleyway entrance. A small ten year old skeleton in an oversized hoodie, Sans somehow appeared uncaring and terrifying all at once._

 _Charlat gasped exaggeratedly. "Look, guys, it talks!"_

 _The other two laughed. Papyrus winced in sympathy. Sans appeared unaffected. "ya know, i really couldn't care less about whatever you do in your spare time. but i'll give you one warning. you keep doing what you're doing now, and…"_

 _Suddenly Sans was not two paces apart from Charlat, staring him down although he was several inches shorter. Papyrus felt a burst of pride as his little brother used every trick in his arsenal-his right eye socket was completely black, the left blazed with blue and gold fire. His left fist was encased in a blue glow. Two Gaster Blasters flanked the small skeleton, as well as a multitude of sharpened bones pointing straight at the offenders. Three SOULs came out and turned cyan with a_ ping!

" _ **You're gonna have a bad time."**_

 _The three gulped and backed away. "H-hey, man," Yandi said weakly. "C-can we t-talk about this?"_

" _Funny." The fire in Sans' eyes extinguished, leaving two black abysses to stare into the bullies. Papyrus found it almost funny that the kids tormenting him didn't know that Sans was probably going to faceplant or walk into a wall or something if he didn't manifest his eyelights soon. " **You have three second** **s**_ _ **."**_

 _They ran._

 _As soon as they were gone, all the attacks and blue glows disappeared. Sans swayed, and Papyrus rushed forwards and caught him before he could fall._

" _BROTHER? ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?"_

" _ha...should be askin' you that, paps…" Sans murmured. The ten year old buried in skull in Papyrus' sweater. His hoodie flapped open, revealing a striped shirt of blue and golden yellow. "they scare me, pappy."_

 _Papyrus hugged Sans to his chest. "IT'S OKAY, BROTHER. I WON'T LET THEM HURT YOU. YOU PROTECT ME, I PROTECT YOU. OKAY?"_

" _yeah. yeah, okay."_

* * *

"P-Papyrus? A-are you o-okay?"

The taller skeleton blinked, coming out of his flashback. "ALPHYS? OH, YES. I AM PERFECTLY FINE. JUST A LITTLE DISORIENTED IS ALL."

A polar bear-style monster clapped him on the scapula. "Aren't we all!" He noted that the Snowdin monsters seemed to be taking him more seriously.

Undyne stepped closer to the two skeletons, sending them both a look. For once, she said nothing. Papyrus understood anyway.

"WHERE ARE WE GOING?" he asked, changing the subject.

"hotland. alphys' lab," Sans told him confidently. "ch-the human can't get into the basement."

"How do you know?" a fish monster questioned.

The light in Sans' eyes dissipated. " **."**

No one questioned him after that. "anyone know the time?" he asked, relaxing again.

Grillby told him. Sans, Alphys, Undyne, and Papyrus' eye(socket)s widened. They were late! Chara would be making their way through Snowdin now, probably, since they hadn't met any resistance. And although Temmie Village was hidden, Papyrus was fairly sure that Chara still knew it like the back of their hand. Anyone would notice the many out-of-place monsters loitering there.

If Sans was right, (and Papyrus would never doubt him) that meant Chara would go on a killing spree.

 _They kill me when I offer MERCY,_ he tried to convince himself once again.

Meanwhile, Alphys was internally freaking out.

How could she efficiently transport all these monsters all the way to Hotland? She'd already alerted the Hotland monsters, they would join the party as soon as they passed through. But at this rate, they'd never make it. They'd all fail, and die, and-

"i'll bring everyone," she heard Sans say. "i know a shortcut."

Papyrus whirled around theatrically, although Alphys doubted he meant to. "SANS!" He quieted his voice slightly. "YOU'VE NEVER DONE IT WITH SO MANY BEFORE!"

"Many what?" Undyne asked, leaning in. Then her eye grew even bigger. "Oh! A _shortcut!"_

"i can do it," Sans insisted. His smile, instead of faking happiness, looked stubborn and defiant. "can't do one at a time, chara'll come 'fore we're done."

"Y-Your magic l-levels are h-higher than usual," Alphys interjected.

"yeah, two hp," Sans nodded, giving them no question him, before turning back to the amassed monsters. "everyone grab hands."

"SANS, ARE...ARE YOU SURE?" Papyrus asked worriedly.

"i can handle it, pap. and i might need some pickmeup after, but alphys is a pro at getting magic levels up." He winked at her. Alphys gasped as she realized what he meant.

"S-Sans! Y-y-you c-can't-" she stammered, her stutter getting even worse at the mention. Alphys felt Undyne and some other monster grab her hands.

Sans closed his eyes.

The entirety of Snowdin and Waterfall disappeared in a flash of blue magic.

* * *

 **There y'are! Another chapter to tide you over since I'm...*gasp* a procrastinator!**

 **Hope you liked it, anyway. Have fun deciding what happens next. If you have any theories, please share. Love those.**

 **Did you like Charlat? I'm proud of my creation. (I own the OCs Charlat, Yandi, and Nitah) Get his name? Charlat? As in charlatan? Also as in 'char'? As in fire? I'm so clever, aren't I? This is lots of questions, why can't I stop asking?**

 **I just love the idea of smol Sans protecting smol Papyrus from bullies. This is not the last time their past will be mentioned! Be warned!**

 **Oh, almost forgot. Today's song picks are the Echo and Re-Incarnation animations by v0idless on YouTube. They're seriously the best thing ever, check it out.**

 **Also, for those of you that like Deviantart and comics, why not look at zarla's Handplates AU comics? They're amazing, fantastic. Handplates!Gaster is my favorite other than Dadster. I can't decide between them!**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	12. You'll Be The Death Of Me

**And we're back to the confusing mind-struggles of our favorite pacifist! Let's check on how Frisk is doing, shall we?**

 **Not much to say, except for that I couldn't really think of a good name for this chapter. Bad genocide puns are bad.**

 **There's a cut-off swear in this short little chappie. Just a warning.**

 **Song of the day-Battle Scars by Paradise Fears. It's a real Pacifist Run song, the video makes me cry.**

 **Whooo! I forgot, this is a real landmark! 50 Follows, 35 Favs, 20,000 words! Thank you all for sticking with me for so long!**

 **I simply kidnap Toby Fox's characters and force them to live out my thoughts. They do not belong to me. Toby Fox owns Undertale.**

* * *

Frisk struggled back to the surface of their consciousness when Sans disappeared.

" _Sans!"_ they screamed, disregarding their normal hate for speaking. But their voice was hoarse and tiny from disuse, and their hands were fluttering about aimlessly, trying to remember the signs needed to convey what they needed to say.

Chara pushed them back down. _That was interesting,_ the Fallen Child mused. _At least he won't delay us in Judgement Hall anymore. That stab'll dust him pretty fast. I just hope he teleported to his brother. I wonder how Papyrus would react-?_

 _STOP!_ FRisk attempted to mentally put their hands over their ears. _Please! Just….stop everything! What did they ever do to you?!_

Suddenly Frisk's mind was an expanse of white, and Chara was snarling at them. _WHAT DID THEY DO TO ME?! HE BETRAYED ME! HE GAVE UP ON OUR PLAN! WE WERE GOING TO FREE THEM ALL AND UNLEASH THEM ON THE HUMANS, AND HE WENT BACK!_

 _You're talking about Asriel,_ Frisk realized.

 _DON'T SAY THAT NAME!_

 _Asriel betrayed you, didn't he? He didn't fight back against the humans and he died._

 _BE QUIET!_ Chara shrieked, but they looked like they were...crying? _That STUPID goat DIED because he was too WEAK to fight back! MY BROTHER DIED! I CAN'T LET ANYONE ELSE DIE THE SAME WAY!_

Both Frisk and Chara went silent.

 _You don't want me to die?_ Frisk asked.

 _Shut up. We've wasted enough time already. We're leaving._

 _Because I don't fight back?_ The young pacifist persisted.

 _I said shut up, Frisk._

 _You care about me?_

 _SHUT. UP._ Chara mentally gagged them. They started again towards Snowdin, with none of the mocking Frisk had grown used to.

*The thought that Chara cares about you fills you with DETERMINATION.

* * *

Frisk hadn't spoken since Chara got to Snowdin. This run wasn't right-Papyrus and Sans didn't meet them on the way. They hadn't seen either since Sans had fought them. Did that mean Sans was dust? _I can RESET,_ they told themself, trying their best to hide their thoughts from Chara. _I can gather more DETERMINATION, and then I'll RESET, and then I'll SAVE them all. I'll show Chara that pacifism can protect you as much as fighting back._

Meanwhile, Chara was curious. They used Frisk's currently unresisting body to break into deserted houses and poke around. They could tell Frisk was thinking, because the pacifist only protested halfheartedly when they stole.

Sans' and Papyrus' house was odd. They forced open the door, and unlike all their other Genocides, the house looked just as abandoned as the others. A thin layer of dust discolored the stove and the pet rock-sure signs that the skeleton brothers were gone.

 _Maybe they're in the basement,_ Chara wondered aloud-at least to Frisk.

But Sans' lab was empty as well. Chara yanked open drawers, getting frustrated. _It's no fun without people resisting!_ They complained.

How strange, that one moment the Fallen Child appeared to be genuinely trying to help Frisk, and the next they were discouraged by the lack of death in their path. Chara really was unhinged. Frisk thought they must have had good intentions in the beginning, perhaps, but then maybe their death and Asriel's had driven them insane.

Frisk was shocked to realize that they actually weren't scared of Chara this run. All they felt was pity.

 _I don't need pity. Save your lovey-dovey sh-_

 _Language,_ Frisk chided gently.

 _I'll swear all I want!_ Chara grumbled, sounding like a petulant child-which was true, Frisk reflected. But the genocidal child didn't complete their curse. Instead, they stood stock-still, staring at the contents of the drawer they'd just opened.

Frisk looked down through their own stolen eyes and gasped in horror. In the drawer, neatly folded, were many, many dusty, torn red scarves. A tape.

Chara ignored Frisk's reaction and picked up the tape, shoving it in their inventory to watch later. They continued generally messing up the laboratory, finding four more tapes.

 _Hmmm...can't wait to see what these are. Right, Frisk?_

Frisk mentally nodded, faking curiosity. They wanted to delay the fight with Papyrus as long as possible.

Chara unfortunately picked up on that. _Come on, let's go chop off that loser's head._

Chara stormed out of the skeleton brothers' house, leaving the door swinging open. "Skelefreak's got to be in the snowstorm," they muttered.

He wasn't, Frisk saw, a flood of relief rushing through them. The snowstorm was empty. No footprints, no dust, nothing.

Chara shrieked in frustration. Frisk shrank back into their mind, but really they were encouraged.

*DETERMINATION.

* * *

 **Hmmm...CHARActer development! My favorite!**

 **Yeah, that's my theory. I think that while Chara has been driven insane by their/Asriel's/your/Frisk's deaths, their intentions, at their core, were actually to protect you. Which gives me major feels.**

 **Why yes, there are a few parallels between Chara and Papyrus' old bullies. That was intentional.**

 **I got in a few little things that I'll exploit later, too. Plot bunnies for everyone! Heeheehee...**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	13. A Bit Of A Fall-Acy

**Finally! An update!**

 **Wow. Seriously. It's been forever.**

 **Sorry about that unplanned hiatus. Stuff came up. Life comes first, you know the drill. On the bright side, new chapter! Hopefully it'll make y'all forgive me...0w0.**

 **In any case, guess what! I found a new AU! If any of you are on Deviantart or Tumblr, go check out perfectshadow06's Quantumtale AU, okay? I am in _love_ with TK!Sans, he is my new favorite out of _all_ the AU Sanses. Give Perf some love, yeah? That Multiverse story I was talking about in earlier chapters (currently in the works, wink wink) has a 90% chance of including some Quantumtale** **, so you might want to read up on that.**

 **Song of the week! 'The Light Behind Your Eyes' by MCR and 'Light in the Hallway' by Pentatonix. You caught me... I'm secretly an emo, haha. As well as an angst-loving evil author. Sorry about all this angst, by the way. If you want a break, I posted a fluffy Dancetale-inspired oneshot a while back. *shameless self-promoting***

 **Speaking of songs, I started singing lessons! The teacher's real nice. Good guy. Although he keeps calling me an emo... oh well. Can't hide from the truth XD**

 **Bad puns are bad. Very bad. I had no ideas... but I guess you'll see the reason for this chapter's name soon enough. Mwahaha...**

 **Also, _wow. 33 reviews. 62 PEOPLE FAVORITED THIS. 84 PEOPLE FOLLOW THIS STORY._ Just. wow. You guys are all so awesome. So. Freaking. Awesome. Thank you all so much. If anyone has any ideas or thoughts on how this story's gonna end, or what might happen next, I'd love to hear them! Who knows, if I like an idea enough, it might become a reality~**

 **All right, time for the actual chapter! I don't own Undertale, it belongs to a Mr. Toby Fox. As well as Temmie Chang, who doesn't get _nearly_ enough credit. Here you are, my lovelies! Go wild!**

* * *

Papyrus blinked.

The world had shifted. What had been Temmie Village was now the shiny metal walls of a laboratory-a room full of beds. Alphys stifled a short shriek at the sight.

The monsters immediately spread out into a crowd, investigating. The reflective walls and floors made it seem like they were twice their number. The place felt cramped.

However, that wasn't exactly Papyrus' immediate focus as Sans' body crumpled against him.

He caught the smaller skeleton easily, worriedly noting Sans' sharp, quick breaths and the flimsy, _flaky_ feeling of his bones: like he could dust any moment. Laying him on a bed, Papyrus called out, "Alphys!"

The Royal Scientist turned. Papyrus could tell from her face that Alphys was panicking. He made a quick decision: Alphys wasn't a medical doctor, and right now she was distracted. Not the best choice to help Sans, but definitely the greatest option to explain wherever-they-were to the monsters.

He caught hold of Undyne's wrist and turned her towards her girlfriend. "EXPLAIN THIS TO EVERYONE," he instructed, knowing neither girl would need clarification. "AND SEND OUT A NOTICE TO THE HOTLAND MONSTERS TO JOIN US IN THE LABORATORY."

Undyne nodded determinedly. Alphys caught sight of Sans' condition and her eyes widened behind her glasses. "I-is Sans-?"

"I WILL TAKE CARE OF MY BROTHER," Papyrus affirmed. As much as it pained him to put Sans second, his brother had made it clear that _no one_ could leave the lab under any circumstances, and the Amalgamations could probably easily frighten someone into disobeying that. "DR. ALPHYS, PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID TO TELL THEM. SANS SAID THAT IN PREVIOUS TIMELINES, YOU WERE REGARDED AS A HERO. I'M SURE THAT WILL BE TRUE."

Alphys looked down. "O-okay," she said hesitantly. Undyne squeezed her hand and the two turned to the curious masses. Papyrus shifted his attention back to Sans.

Said skeleton did not seem to be doing that great. He was trembling slightly, and with his phalanges fisted in the blankets of the bed he laid on, Sans appeared to be trapped in the throes of a nightmare.

Papyrus reached out and touched the arm of someone he knew could help at least a little. The old turtle turned around warily.

Gerson's face relaxed when he realized it was just him. They vaguely knew each other through Undyne, after all. "Well, if it isn't Papyrus. How can I help ya?"

"MR. GERSON, SIR, YOU DO KNOW SOME FIELD HEALING FROM THE WAR, YES?" Papyrus asked, trying his best not to sound desperate. The old Hammer of Justice blinked.

"Well...that'd be a yes, boy. Wahaha!"

Papyrus motioned to Sans. Shock flashed across Gerson's face before he chuckled uneasily. "Wahaha...I'd guess that's to be expected, if he transported us all! The odds of doing that and being perfectly fine are mighty few. I'd say he just has a bad case of magic depletion. Should recover in no time!"

Papyrus pressed his teeth together and CHECKed Sans. With its owner unconscious, his SOUL floated easily out of his rib cage, suspended above the skeleton along with his stats. Papyrus winced: the inverted heart had a deep gouge along the side, and was barely glowing at all. Sans' HP count read 1/2.

The damage looked a lot more severe than simply magic depletion.

"Fallen Angel…" The old turtle could no longer hide his surprise. "Only two HP?"

Papyrus spun towards the rest of the crowd. He hadn't noticed, but Alphys and Undyne had begun the tale that ended in the Amalgamations, and the monsters were listening with rapt attention.

Gerson spoke before Papyrus could. "Anyone here a healer?" he called out.

A few monsters turned. An anthropomorphic bunny made his way over, but no one else noticed. "I know some," the bunny interjected. "I put it in the ice cream I sell."

"GREAT," Papyrus said quickly. "CAN YOU HEAL MY BROTHER?"

The bunny impressively did not show his reaction to the impossibly low HP. "I can try to stabilize him," he said slowly, "Does seem to have lost some of his magic. Used it up."

His fingers began to glow with green magic as he cupped the fragile SOUL in his hands. Papyrus watched with relief as Sans sighed unconsciously, his breathing easing as he let go of the blankets he'd been grasping like lifelines. The small skeleton looked more like he was sleeping, now.

The bunny withdrew his hands. Sans' HP had gone up half a point: 1.5/2. "Someone should probably start healing him a touch to help him regain some magic," Gerson suggested. "Wahaha!"

Papyrus's hands sparked pale green as he summoned his (admittedly weak) healing magic. To his surprise, as soon as the magic made contact with his brother's SOUL, it glowed brightly for a moment in response, the gouge almost non-existent thanks to the bunny's healing powers.

Aforementioned rabbit laughed. "Seems he likes your magic!" he exclaimed. "Why don't you try healing him in short spurts? If that doesn't work and his HP drops any more…" The bunny's face became solemn. "Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP," Papyrus told them. The two recognized the polite dismissal and turned back to listen to Alphys' tale.

The short bursts of healing seemed to help Sans. His SOUL alternated between shining bright and barely glowing. Soon it was back up to 2/2 HP.

Papyrus focused, but no matter how much healing magic he summoned up, he couldn't get his brother to wake up. The young skeleton was perfectly healthy (at least physically) by all accounts of HP, but he looked like...like he had-

 _No._ Papyrus cut off that train of thought. He halted the realization that although Sans' magic was plentiful, it probably hadn't been enough to _effortlessly_ teleport almost a hundred monsters across the Underground- He stopped the slowly rising dread in his throat that despite Gerson and the bunny's reassurances, something was wrong-

 _Sans was not falling down._ He refused to believe it.

"Papyrus?"

The older skeleton jumped at the touch to his shoulder. Undyne stood at his side, worry on her face. "What's going on over here, Paps?"

The familiar nickname calmed him a little. "I CAN'T GET SANS TO WAKE UP," he explained worriedly. "HE SHOULD… HIS HP IS UP ALL THE WAY."

Undyne CHECKed Sans herself, frowning darkly. The small skeleton had relaxed almost _too_ much in his sleep: his body limp, his breathing had slowed so much it was almost undetectable.

Undyne cursed. Papyrus flinched. That was not good.

She looked at him with sad eyes. "Papyrus… I don't think he _will_ wake up."

Papyrus stepped back like she'd slapped him. "NO. I JUST HAVE TO KEEP HEALING HIM. DO YOU KNOW IF ANYONE HERE IS A DOCTOR?"

"Papyrus, I mean-"

"I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN, UNDYNE," he interrupted quickly. "THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED. IF SANS CAN LIVE THROUGH YEARS WITH ONLY ONE HP, WHY WOULD HE… DO THAT WHEN HE HAS TWO?"

Undyne shook her head, her expression pained but slightly patronizing. She'd probably dealt with monsters who'd Fallen Down quite a bit, given her job. But Sans hadn't. No. He refused to believe that.

"Papyrus… he used a lot of magic just now." Papyrus crossed his arms stubbornly, but was interrupted by Alphys' sudden arrival.

"He w-w-was right, t-they all u-understood, and I-I've sent out a notice to the H-Hotland monsters to come here, t-t-t-too," Alphys reported. "I-is Sans all r-right?"

Undyne bowed her head a bit. "HE'S FINE," Papyrus insisted.

Alphys did a CHECK of her own on the sleeping monster. She gasped, and swallowed thickly.

"F-Fallen…" she murmured. Papyrus threw his hands in the air.

"HE'S _NOT_ FALLING!" he exclaimed, careful to keep his voice quiet so the other monsters wouldn't worry.

Undyne turned her glare on him, ready to shout- then Alphys cleared her throat. "H-he said… Sans said he n-needed… He said I'd have to g-give him a 'pickmeup'."

Undyne's sharp gaze landed on the fidgeting scientist. "You think he meant-?"

"DO IT."

The girls looked to Papyrus, who stared down at his brother. Sans had _known_ this was going to happen, hadn't he. He'd planned it. He'd told Alphys what to do. He _must_ have had some backup plan that involved this.

When Sans woke up, they were going to have a talk about _not_ being reckless and doing drugs that would possibly make him _melt._

"You're sure."

"YES."

Alphys glanced at the floor, mentally preparing. She set her jaw. "I-I'll get the DETERMINATION."

* * *

 **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!**

 **Have fun w** **ith that cliffhanger!**

 **I'm really evil, aren't I...**

 **Sorry, guys. You're gonna hafta wait and see.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **See you soon!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	14. An Ex-Plan-Nation

**I'm baaaaaack! With an update! Yeah!**

 **Only a month from the last update! Better than last time!**

 **Well, this chapter was originally meant to be this chapter and the next, but I split it so I could get this bit out sooner.**

 **Didja like the cliffhanger last time? I'm proud of it.**

 **Also, guess what! I got into lotsa fanworks for Undertale! Including Xtale, Underverse, Glitchtale (which** ** _destroyed_** **my heart), and Undertale The Musical. All of those are** ** _so freaking good._** **Go give 'em so love, okay?**

 **Song of the week! KARMA by VocaCircus. I've been getting into a lot of Vocaloid lately. So that'll probably pop up as songs of the week a lot!**

 **Also I posted a drabble. It's called 'two cups of tea'. Basically Sad Asgore. I'm trying to get back into my Undertale Groove, so I might post some one-shots. Kay?**

 **Now, without further ado! Undertale belong to our Lord and Savior, the Annoying Dog.**

* * *

Undyne was unsure.

This did not seem safe. At all.

Alphys had left and returned with a small syringe of thick red liquid. Undyne had shooed the other monsters out of the room with the beds, insisting they should look around a bit. Find the Amalgamates. Get used to this, frankly creepy, laboratory. Now the three monsters were alone. They gathered around the bed where Sans lay.

Alphys regarded the skeleton with a critical eye. "I d-don't want to p-put it in h-h-his SOUL," she explained haltingly. "T-that w-w-would make him, um, l-like the o-others, I t-think… but t-the rest of him is b-bones?"

"RIGHT EYE SOCKET," Papyrus supplied. When the two girls blinked at the specific term, he elaborated. "EYE SOCKETS WOULD BE THE MOST ACCESSIBLE, AND HIS RIGHT ONE'S FAULTY. IT DOESN'T GLOW LIKE THE OTHER ONE. I DON'T WANT TO RISK PUTTING OUT HIS LEFT EYE."

Alphys tilted her head. "I r-really d-didn't expect you to b-be this smart," she remarked. She flushed red when she realized what she'd said. It was kind of cute, Undyne noted. "O-oh, uh, sorry-"

Papyrus waved it off. "I JUST… REALLY HOPE THIS WORKS."

Undyne looked to her… girlfriend? Were she and Alphys still in a relationship in this timeline? Whatever, not important. "Whenever you're ready, I guess."

Alphys' hands were shaking violently. The edges of Undyne's teeth toyed with her lip. Alphys had to be terrified, after what had happened with the Amalgamates… "Give it here."

"W-What?" Both Papyrus and Alphys stared at her in confusion. Undyne cleared her throat.

"I'll do the eye socket stabby stabby. Gimme the needle."

Alphys passed it off hurriedly, relaxing visibly once the DETERMINATION was out of her grasp. Papyrus kept watching Undyne, his gaze dark and serious. She shifted uncomfortably- the look didn't fit well with her usually happy-go-lucky friend. "Well, here goes."

She pressed the needle downwards into Sans' eye socket- he didn't even twitch- and pushed down. The DETERMINATION drained out of the container.

There was silence. Undyne slowly set down the empty needle and leaned forwards in anticipacion. Papyrus' fingers gripped the edge of the metal bed frame.

They both jumped when Alphys spoke. "I-it might t-t-t-take a little wh-while. The others…"

"nah," came a voice from the bed. "you did good, alph, thanks."

Immediately every eye was pinned to the small skeleton struggling to wake himself up and/or get out of the bed. "man, i feel like i just had surgery. a little help would be nice."

Papyrus grabbed Sans and swung him through the air, a relieved smile marring his scolding look. Undyne leaned out of the way, unable to resist a chuckle at Sans' expression.

"whoa!"

"YOU ABSOLUTE BONEHEAD, YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO DO THAT AGAIN EVER, DO YOU HEAR ME? OR AT LEAST TELL SOMEONE BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO RISK YOUR LIFE, OR MAKE SOME RISKY PLAN OR SOMETHING. ACTUALLY YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE PLANS WITHOUT INFORMING ME FIRST AND-"

"okay, okay, i get it." Sans apparently looked sufficiently chastised. Papyrus set him down. " **eye socket** making plans, right?"

Papyrus scowled. "YOU REALLY DO. BECAUSE I'M CURRENTLY GLAD YOU'RE ALIVE, I WILL IGNORE THE PUN, EVEN IF IT IS A STRETCH."

"Sans, you a-are an _idiot_ ," Alphys scolded angrily, her hands on her hips. "Do you even know how _d-dangerous_ that was?!"

Before Undyne could jump in with some yelling of her own, Sans held up his hands. "yeah. i know it's dangerous, coulda made me melt or die immediately which would not have been fun for anyone, but we did need to transport a whole lotta monsters." He peered around the empty room. "uh, we did transport them, right?"

"Yeah," Undyne confirmed. "We sent them out of the room while we did emergency DETERMINATION enhancement on your eye."

Sans winced slightly. "well, i guess that explains why it stings… but seriously. you really shouldn't have been worried. i mean, i'll just come back next reset and you won't remember it."

Papyrus and Alphys looked ready to protest, but Undyne beat them to it. "First of all, you just _Fell Down,_ so _yeah,_ we'd be worried! And second, let me remind you that if you _had_ dusted, none of us would have had any idea what to do next! None of us have lived through this like you have, and then we'd have to cope with you dying on us as well! Do you have any _idea_ what that would do to your brother here? Or me, or Alphys? Not to mention, if this timeline _did_ RESET, we wouldn't have any idea this happened, and if you told us again, we'd probably think you were crazy or something! This is literally our _only_ chance to change _anything!_ You can't be so… so…" She struggled to find a fitting word. "So _frivolous_ with your life!"

Undyne held determined eye contact with the skeleton, refusing to break off the staring contest. Sans looked away first, staring at the ground. "i... didn't think of it like that," he said softly.

Papyrus broke in. "WELL, NOW YOU WILL! AND NOW SINCE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN, WE CAN ALL STOP WORRYING AND FOCUS ON HELPING FRISK!"

Undyne heard the silent few words at the end of the sentence: _and stop them from killing us._ But Sans suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"um... my stupid dangerous plan might possibly have more to it? because i think i'm gonna start melting soon."

" _WHAT?"_

Papyrus immediately lifted up his brother again and checked him over for any signs of goopiness. Thankfully, there were none. "MELTING?!"

Sans held up both hands to try and placate his now freaked out brother. "oh- no, it's fine! that happens to all monsters with determination put inside them."

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT A PROBLEM!"

Undyne threw up her hands. "Sans, what the h-"

"censor," Sans interrupted. "teenager here."

Alphys squinted. "T-technically, eighteen is l-legally an adult."

"really? is that how it works for humans?" Sans mused, seemed surprised and not at all as concerned as he should have been about the whole _melting_ thing. "wow. i'm an adult. that's hilarious and mildly disturbing."

Papyrus groaned. "CAN WE _PLEASE_ FOCUS?"

"I was going to say 'heck'," Undyne muttered indignantly, but let it go.

"Let me g-guess, your stupid plan _s-s-somehow_ goes over b-being injected with D-DETERMINATION?" Alphys asked.

"actually, that's sort of the point of the whole plan. cause, you know, if this works out, we'll have a better plan for what happens next." Sans shrugged and started walking out of the room, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

The others exchanged confused looks but decided not to press it. The did have a time limit, after all.

Outside the room, they found Sans, looking _extremely_ uncomfortable, being surrounded by several chatty monsters.

"um, yeah, it was, uh, a… really effective shortcut. look, not that i don't want to talk, but-"

Undyne bullied her way through the impromptu crowd, summoning a (harmless) spear. "Yo! We need Sans for a few! Clear out!"

Papyrus protectively stepped slightly in front his brother. "WE WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU COULD ALL LEAVE THIS ROOM FOR JUST A LITTLE WHILE!"

The other monsters left without much grumbling, and only a few excited questions about how Sans had teleported them all into the labs. Soon the room was empty, and Alphys, Papyrus, and Undyne were free to look around.

"What is THAT thing?!" Undyne pointed up at the huge machine, shaped a bit like the head of a gyftrot with ominous-looking pincers.

"I d-don't really know..." Alphys confessed. "I used it… to e-e-e-extract the D-DETERMINATION from h-human SOULs… but I d-don't really know what it does."

"nah. seems like that's pretty much it. it is called a determination extractor, after all."

Sans approached the machine, setting one hand on the dark red surface. "hopefully it'll work on monster souls too."

The other three stared at him for a moment.

Then Alphys burst into laughter.

"Y-you mean, _a-all_ I had to d-do was put them in the _s-s-stupid_ machine, and they all w-would've been _fine?!"_ she gasped, hysterical tears coming to her eyes.

Undyne panicked. "NO! THAT'S NOT WHAT HE MEANT! YOU DID EVERYTHING YOU COULD!" She enveloped Alphys in a comforting hug, glaring harshly at Sans.

The aforementioned skeleton looked at a loss. "um, yeah. what she said. and it might not work anyway. also, i don't think there's any chance it would've worked on already-melted monsters… and before then you really couldn't have known what would happen."

"IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT! YOU WERE UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE!" Papyrus tried his best to be encouraging.

Alphys sniffled. At some point she'd transitioned from laughter to sobbing. "...t-thanks…"

Undyne consoled Alphys for a couple more minutes. The skeleton brothers stood there awkwardly, exchanging looks every so often.

Sans' look said _do you know what to do now...?_

Papyrus' expression said _I REALLY DON'T. I'VE NEVER BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE._

 _sure you have. you dated the kiddo._

 _I DID?_

 _yeah. i spied on you with alphys. it was hilarious._

 _PLEASE TELL ME YOU DIDN'T DISRUPT US WITH INCIDENTAL MUSIC._

 _i try to make a point out of not lying._

 _THAT IS A BLATANT LIE IN ITSELF! YOU LIE ALL THE TIME._

 _when i have to. it's not like i can walk up to someone and tell them 'hey guess what i'm wildly nihilistic because our life resets over and over and there's literally no way out'._

 _WHAT?_

 _um. you were not meant to know that._

 _SANS. YOU CAN'T HIDE THINGS FROM ME IN YOUR EXPRESSIONS. YOU NEED TO TELL ME ABOUT THESE THINGS._

 _didn't i just say i couldn't do that, though?_

"Uh… are you two okay?"

The two skeletons blinked back into the conversation. "WE WERE JUST EXPRESSION-CONVERSING," Papyrus explained unhelpfully.

Undyne squinted. "What's that?"

Alphys jumped in. "Oh, that's j-just something s-skeletons do, since m-most of them can't stop s-smiling and some of them- like Sans- c-can't open their mouths, so they're all really g-good at r-r-reading expressions. Sometimes if they're really e-experienced or know e-each other very well, they can have c-conversations- wait."

She glanced between Papyrus and Sans. Both the two looked confused- albeit for different reasons. "I've never r-read any books on skeletons b-before," she said slowly. "Or r-researched skeletons at all… h-how did I know that?"

Undyne was open-mouthed. "Whoa! That's cool. And also sort of freaky. How _did_ you know that?"

Sans' (skeleton equivalent of a) brow scrunched up in thought. " _i_ told you that. a few timelines ago. you caught me and papyrus in a conversation and asked why we were standing there staring at each other. you repeated the explanation almost word for word, too. just got one thing wrong. i can open my mouth."

"Y-you can?" Alphys peered at him searchingly. "I've never seen t-that."

"i don't do it that much."

"BUT IF IT WAS IN ANOTHER TIMELINE, THEN WHY WOULD ALPHYS REMEMBER IT?" Papyrus pondered.

"the timeline," Sans realized. "i told you before that it's unstable." He thought of being briefly plunged into a (normal) Genocide Route and shuddered. "before you guys found me in the snowstorm, i was… thrown out of the timeline, i guess. into one where… well…"

He reached into the pocket of his shorts and brought out the long piece of red fabric- covered in dust.

Alphys gasped, bringing both hands to her mouth. Undyne went wide-eyed. Her eye darted towards Papyrus's scarf, and then the dusty replica in Sans' hand.

Papyrus reached out cautiously and took the scarf. "THIS… THIS IS MINE."

Somehow, everyone knew he wasn't talking about the scarf.

Sans nodded slowly. "that's where you died in that timeline… i had enough time to see it before i got pulled back."

Papyrus stared down at the smattering of dust on the scarf. It was different to see the evidence of his death in other timelines… the happy memories he had of Frisk felt faker, all of a sudden.

He made a decision. Papyrus, on an impulse, tied the scarf around the breastplate of his battle body like a sash.

* **YOU EQUIPPED THE DUSTY SCARF!**

* **+20 DEFENCE**

* **YOU FEEL LIKE TWICE THE MONSTER YOU ARE.**

Sans looked at him sharply. "papyrus, are you sure you want to-"

"PLEASE," Papyrus interrupted. "I THINK I MIGHT NEED… A REMINDER."

They locked eyes for a second before Sans nodded. "we should get to work."

* * *

 **Not that exciting... Aww. But Sans will be okay! Probably.**

 **Man, I'm such a liar. I told you there would be action and I lied. I'm sorry.**

 **This may seem like filler, but there is important plot! That had to be established. Especially foreshadowing [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].**

 **What? You can't see those words? Huh. Must be spoilers.**

 **I headcanon that all skeletons are AWESOME at reading expressions. Cause, you know, they can't move their skulls that much. So they have to know what even the tiniest shift means! They can even expression-converse. Although they can't lie without extreme effort while doing that, because... it's literally reading expressions.**

 **Also, thank you so much for the kind reviews. I appreciate y'all SO MUCH. I love you all!**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a nice day!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	15. Extra(ct) Fun Extractions

**Yay! Super-quick shorty update!**

 **I honestly expected this to take longer. This is technically Chapter 14.5, but oh, well!**

 **Anyways, how'd you like last chapter? Left on a bit of a cliffhanger, though not nearly as bad as last time's.**

 **Guys. 41 reviews. Seventy-one favs. Ninety. Nine. Followers. On. This. Story.**

 **Wow. I did** ** _not_** **know you guys would like my stupid ideas so much. We're on the doorstep of the 100-follows milestone! I'm so grateful to all of you for helping me along, sending me your kind reviews and thoughts on my story, and motivating me. Thank you all! This story would not have been possible without your help!**

 **Song of the day! Breathe by VocaCircus, featuring Dex. I love that song. Get it stuck in my head all the time.**

 **I might be working on a short story about Alphys and Sans and an incident at the CORE sometime soon... keep an eye out, yeah? Or don't. I might not get around to posting it, anyway. Hopefully I will! (It wouldn't take place in this universe, though, just a normal Pacifist timeline)**

 **Welp, time for reading! Have fun with my stolen characters that belong to Toby Fox!**

* * *

It took Alphys only a few minutes to get the machine running. She had used it before, after all.

"P-put your SOUL i-in the EXTRACTION c-c-chamber," she instructed shakily from the control panel behind the machine.

Sans inspected the machine carefully before summoning his SOUL. It fluttered delicately in his cautious grip. "where's that?"

"In b-between the pincers," Alphys clarified. "T-they k-k-keep it stable… and protect it from being r-removed d-d-during the process."

Sans grimaced, thinking. "gotcha. have any extracted magic or anything?"

She blinked. "W-what do you mean?"

"i mean, determination is sorta the only thing keeping me from falling right now. i probably shouldn't just extract it all without doing anything."

"Would something like healing magic work?" Undyne asked curiously. She'd been keeping mostly quiet, since she didn't know anything about science or the SOUL, but magic was a language she spoke well.

Sans considered it. "maybe. i dunno. you might not believe it, but i've never done this before. or been out of magic before. it feels kinda strange."

Alphys nodded. "T-there should be s-s-some vials in o-one of the refrigerators in the o-other room. I took s-some magic f-from the monsters who fell down. I-I thought they w-wouldn't need it anymore… Papyrus, could you-?"

"I WILL BE BACK SOON WITH YOUR VIALS!" The exuberant skeleton paused for a moment. "WHERE EXACTLY IS THIS ROOM?"

While she gave him directions, Sans clenched his fists in the pockets of his hoodie. He could _feel_ the joints of his fingers, ever so slowly, becoming just _slightly_ stickier.

Well, hopefully he would be un-DETERMINED before anyone had to find out about that.

* * *

Papyrus strode purposefully through the small hordes of monsters, making his way to the room with the refrigerators. He found it quickly.

There were four refrigerators. He wondered briefly if any of them were hot fridges, like Undyne had.

No use wasting time! He made to open the first fridge, but to his surprise, his hand… stuck to the door.

Papyrus tugged slightly. It didn't unstick from his hand. He pulled a little harder.

By this point, a few monsters had stopped to stare at him and wonder what he was up to. Papyrus tried for a reassuring smile.

The refrigerator decided that was an excellent time to unstick his hand and melt. The gooey whitish sludge formed into a shape vaguely like a horrific mix between a snowdrake and several vegetoids.

Papyrus stumbled back, fear rushing through him. He'd never actually seen the Amalgamates before, despite Alphys' stories. He now understood why she'd been so ashamed and hesitant to let them go free.

"Sn…o…wy…" the Amalgamate moaned.

It shook Papyrus. The voice was… familiar. "M-MRS. DRAKE…?" She'd Fallen Down a long time ago- she must have been part of this Amalgamate.

The Amalgamate's drooping, dark eyes snapped to him. "Is… who… me… ?"

"Someone get Snowy and Chilldrake," he heard someone whisper.

Papyrus held up placating hands. The Amalgamate- Snowy's mother- wouldn't hurt him. At least not intentionally. "DO YOU REMEMBER ME, MRS. DRAKE? I'M PAPYRUS. I LIVE WITH MY BROTHER SANS, NEAR YOUR HOME IN SNOWDIN."

Snowy's mother tilted her malformed head. "Pa…py…ru…sn…ow...y."

"YOUR SON IS FINE. HE'S VERY NICE! A… GOOD COMEDIAN." He winced at the look in the Amalgamate's eyes. She was trying so hard to remember… but it didn't seem like she could. Her gaze was slowly getting more predatory.

Papyrus hurriedly cleared his throat. Mrs. Drake's son- he told jokes. He was trying to be a comedian. He and Sans occasionally swapped puns. "WHAT DO YOU CALL… A SNOWMAN HAVING A TANTRUM?"

He'd heard this joke from Sans a long time ago. Snowy's mother blinked slowly. "What...do...you...call…?"

"A MELTDOWN." He cringed slightly at the bad joke, but a slow smile spread across Snowy's mother's face.

"Ha… ha… Re...mem...ber...thank...you…"

"SNOW PROBLEM." Despite popular opinion, Papyrus could in fact make puns… he just usually hated them. Now, however, he'd make an exception.

Snowy's mother actually laughed, a chilling, piercing sound that made Papyrus shudder.

" _Mom!"_

Papyrus stepped back as a young snowdrake flung himself into his mother's arms. The Amalgamate's large eyes widened. "Sn...o...wy...am...I...ho...me…?"

"Yeah," Snowy replied tearfully. "We'll go home soon. Oh, _mom-"_

Papyrus quietly found the vials of glowing multicolored magic in another fridge and backed out of the room. It seemed like he should give them some privacy.

* * *

Undyne breathed a sigh of relief when Papyrus came stumbling back in. There were glowing vials in both his hands, as well as tucked into his new scarf-sash. The scarf from the other timeline unnerved Undyne. If she squinted, she could still see the dust.

"SORRY THAT TOOK SO LONG," Papyrus apologized. "I… RAN INTO SNOWY'S MOTHER."

Alphys gasped. "O-oh! How did s-she react? I-is everyone o-o-okay?"

From the reaction, Undyne realized that Snowy's mother must have been an Amalgamate. Papyrus nodded. "SHE'S REUNITED WITH HER SON NOW."

Alphys smiled. "...T-that's good. Now- Sans."

The skeleton started, taking one hand out of his pocket. Undyne blinked. Was it just her, or did his hand look sort of… slimy?

Papyrus handed the vials over to his brother, who uncorked one. Undyne watched with interest. The vials were full of a plasma-like liquid substance, glowing and shifting colors: pure distilled magic. "so do i just drink it, or…?"

"D-drinking it should be fine," Alphys confirmed.

Undyne got impatient. "Come on!"

Sans shrugged and downed the vial. He blinked, a quick shudder passing through his body, before regaining his composure. "wow. regular energy drink."

Alphys nodded, already preparing the DETERMINATION Extractor. "Y-you'll need probably around t-three or four m-m-more."

Sans drank three before announcing that he had felt most, if not all of his magic return. Undyne felt her own magic twitching in nervousness as he relayed to them the odd feeling of being filled with both magic and DETERMINATION.

"it's... strange. like, it feels like there's something fighting it out in my soul." Sans actually looked worried, which meant that the sensation was something serious.

"Well, we won't have to worry about that for long!" Undyne said briskly. "Is it ready, Alphy?"

Alphys nodded, to focused in her work to note the use of the nickname. "Y-yeah. Let's s-start?"

Papyrus followed Sans up to the pincers on the machine- the EXTRACTION chamber. "I'M STAYING WITH YOU," the older skeleton insisted when questioned.

Sans nodded. "yeah. okay."

He slowly guided his SOUL into the EXTRACTION chamber. The pincers on each side swung down to clamp it firmly in place. Sans winced.

"S-s-sorry," Alphys apologized. "I-I've only ever d-d-done this on h-human SOULs…"

 _SOULs that weren't alive_ is what Undyne knew she meant. Sans forced a bigger smile. "all right. let's get this over with."

"I-I've set i-it to one h-hundred percent extraction," the nervous Royal Scientist explained, her fingers hovering over the control panel. "It w-won't stop until the p-p-process is over."

Sans only dipped his chin quickly to indicate he understood. Undyne wondered how it would feel to her her SOUL caught between the pincers, at the mercy of the machine.

Alphys started up the DETERMINATION Extractor. Although she was several feet away, Undyne heard both the suction-like sound of the machine and Sans' sudden, harshly stunned intake of breath.

"SANS?" Papyrus asked worriedly as his brother started to lean against him.

"'m fine," Sans assured after a moment, a small gasp accompanying the words. "just got startled. this feels _really weird._ although i guess it should, because it's literally sucking stuff out of my soul."

Undyne kept her magic at the ready, prepared to summon a spear and smash through the machine if it showed the slightest sign of malfunctioning. Fortunately, the uncomfortable feelings just seemed to be how the Extractor worked. Sans spent the process with his jaw clenched and eyes closed tight, braced against Papyrus.

Alphys called out a progress report from the control panel. "F-fifty percent done. S-seventy- seventy-f-five!"

As soon as Alphys alerted them that one hundred percent of the DETERMINATION had left Sans' SOUL, the machine abruptly stopped its low whine and the pincers swung upwards. With his SOUL released, Sans lost his balance and stumbled as his SOUL fled back into the safety of his ribs. Papyrus caught him easily.

"Feeling good, punk?" Undyne inquired.

"yep. never better. glad the stupid plan worked."

Alphys switched off the machine. She went around behind the Extractor and came out with vial of bright red liquid. "I t-thought maybe… we m-might need some," she murmured, stowing the vial in the pocket of her lab coat.

Sans smiled encouragingly, which Undyne appreciated. "good job, alph. pays to be prepared."

Alphys smiled back, obviously feeling a bit better.

"DO YOU THINK THE HOTLAND MONSTERS HAVE ARRIVED YET?" Papyrus changed the subject.

Undyne considered it. "Uh… Probably!"

" _DOCTOR!_ Where have you gone? There's lots of monsters waiting for you~" As if to answer the question, a loud and entertaining voice sounded from upstairs.

Alphys flinched. "I f-forgot about him," she admitted.

Sans quickly took charge. "you and papyrus go meet him and the other hotland monsters. 'dyne and i have stuff to do down here."

Undyne turned sharply to look at the small skeleton. He responded with a wink.

Papyrus looked elated at the chance to see his idol-turned-friend. "OKIE-DOKIE! COME ON, DOCTOR ALPHYS, LET'S GO SEE METTATON!"

* * *

 **See, Sans is fine! Just a bit shaky. It turns out it was as simple as extracting DETERMINATION from the affected. Poor Alphys had no idea. And in the next chapter, there will be Mettaton! If I can figure out how to write that silly robot. He's messing with my head with his STAR POWER!**

 **Might need to check up on our favorite lil' pacifist soon, too. Seems like they could use a bit of support. And didn't they just find some tapes? We will need to revisit them... in a chapter or two. Y'all are gonna hafta turn on those supreme powers of patience that you use to put up with me.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	16. Rethin-King Plans

**Hey! Guess who's here with another chapter? It's meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!**

 **I've been real busy lately, so here's a bit to tide you over until I can get to writing again. All the other things are taking over my mind... I've been getting REALLY INTO Avengers lately. Peter Parker, mostly. I love small adorable characters who could probably beat up EVERYTHING if they wanted to. And Infinity War didn't help. That Scene made me cry my eyes out. I might post a oneshot for Avengers/Spider-Man if I have enough time... any thoughts? If there's any Marvel fangirls/fanboys reading this, how would you feel about that?**

 **Enough about that! You came for Undertale! This bit's mostly talking and set-up for more scenes but hopefully it's good...? I didn't really have time to edit, haha.**

 **Mettaton KICKED MY BUTT. Do not expect much more of our favorite robot star, because he's REALLY DANG HARD to write for some reason.**

 **Whoa, whoa, whoa! Eighty favs! Almost fifty reviews! Over a hundred followers! You guys are so fantastic. I teared up and I'm not afraid to admit it.**

 **Song of the week is 1/4 by VocaCircus, featuring KAITO. Another vocaloid. Great song, great song.**

 **Enough stalling now! I don't own these characters. They belong to Toby Fox. Have fun!**

* * *

"Why, Dr. Alphys! I'm so glad you're here!" Mettaton preened. Papyrus had been briefly surprised at his rectangular form, before realizing that, of course, the star's new body hadn't officially premiered yet.

"HELLO METTATON!" he piped up, after it became clear that Alphys was at a loss for words. It seemed Hotland housed more monsters than she'd anticipated.

The large screen that was Mettaton's 'face' tilted towards Papyrus. "And who are _you,_ darling?" he asked, not unkindly. The skeleton could imagine him raising an eyebrow.

It sort of hurt that Mettaton didn't recognize him, though. They'd had a lot of fun before… in the last timeline. Once Papyrus and Undyne had been guest stars on a cooking show! It… had ended in fire. But there were lots of viewers!

Papyrus kept having to remind himself that the other timeline hadn't actually happened. "I'M WITH DOCTOR ALPHYS! I'M-" _A FRIEND._ "-A FAN OF YOURS!"

"Oh!" Mettaton somehow winked despite a significant lack of eyes. "Well, now usually I would _love_ to spend some time with my fans, but there's more pressing issues now, I'm afraid. Doctor, I believe you sent out an evacuation notice?"

"R-right," Alphys nodded regaining composure. She took a deep breath, and "-There's a h-human in S-Snowdin."

The assembled monsters gasped, shrieked, and generally acted chaotic in their panic. Alphys waved her arms, desperately trying to get them to calm down.

Mettaton lit up, figuratively and literally. "A human? Here?! In the Underground?!"

Oh, no. Even if Mettaton didn't remember him, Papyrus was _not_ going to let his former friend be attacked. "METTATON, THE HUMAN IS KILLING MONSTERS. EVERY MONSTER THEY FIND."

Sans had already been hurt by Chara, and had nearly killed himself trying to get everyone safely away. Papyrus didn't want to think about what would happen if Mettaton faced off against the human. The scarf-sash he'd donned felt sticky and heavy, and he knew monsters nearby were shifting around uncomfortably at the sight of the dust on it.

Mettaton's screen somehow changed to a pout. Papyrus didn't question it. "Darling, I'm sure the necessary anti-human modifications could be made. Plus, I'm just _dying_ to premiere my new body…"

Alphys shook her head. "N-not this time. We a-all have to go i-i-into hiding."

Papyrus could tell Mettaton wasn't satisfied, but before he could interject, a booming voice crashed through the room.

"Dr. Alphys, what do you mean about a human?"

Both Papyrus and Alphys froze. A bead of sweat slipped below Alphys collar. Papyrus berated himself. How exactly had he not noticed the impressive stature and vast shoulder guards before?

"A- _KING_ ASGORE-"

The king's stern expression seemed like a father scolding his children. Papyrus felt a pang in his SOUL when he realized that this was the same man who had played catch with him and Frisk, made tea whenever someone had a bad day, never negotiated with humans without a smile and the offer of a snack. The same man who'd become something of a father figure to Papyrus and everyone he knew. And now… Now, Asgore didn't recognize him. Asgore probably believed that he'd never seen the skeleton in his life- and he hadn't, not in this timeline.

 _Sans has gone through this countless times,_ he reminded himself. If Sans could go through timelines pretending he'd never seen friends before in his life, The Great Papyrus could as well.

Alphys was flustered. "Oh! As- Your H-Highness, there's a really good explanation f-for this, I s-s-swear. But e-everyone needs t-t-to come downstairs now, p-please?"

Asgore considered it. The horde of monsters was relatively quiet for a moment, waiting for their king's verdict.

"All right," he allowed. Monsters immediately pressed towards Alphys' elevator. Papyrus stood with baited breath- he was sure there was going to be a 'but' somewhere. He was right.

"But as soon as we're situated, you will tell me everything," Asgore finished firmly.

Alphys flinched, so Papyrus took over. It _had_ been a rather dumb mistake not to tell the King they were evacuating monsters, after all. "WE'LL TELL YOU ALL WE CAN, YOUR HIGHNESS." It felt odd referring to Asgore with such titles- in his mind, Papyrus had bypassed that stage long ago.

Asgore arched an eyebrow at the response, but accepted it and continued along downstairs with the other monsters. Papyrus had tried to word his reply so that they wouldn't necessarily have to tell the King _everything;_ Asgore would probably stop believing the story somewhere around the RESETS.

Alphys glanced up at Papyrus, and he tried to smile wider for her. "EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE," he assured her. "I'M SURE WE CAN COME UP WITH A PLAN. HOPEFULLY A LESS DUMB ONE THAN SANS'."

Alphys snorted, and they followed Asgore into the elevator.

* * *

As soon as Alphys and Papyrus left to handle Mettaton and the Hotland monsters, Undyne rounded on Sans.

"All right, punk, you better sit down right now and tell me what stupid plan you've got cooked up this time," she ordered.

Sans, who had apparently decided not to argue with her for once, plopped down. Undyne narrowed her eye. He wanted something from her, she could tell.

She sat down across from the skeleton. "Spill, dweeb."

Instead of looking her in the eye, Sans played with the joints of his phalanges. Undyne noticed with a start that the usual gaps where magic connected the slender bones were gone. The separate bones had fused together, although it seemed it hadn't impeded the skeleton's movement any.

"Oh _holy-"_

"yeah, i know. didn't get the determination out quite in time, but it didn't hurt anything, so would appreciate it if you didn't tell alph or pap. they've got better things to worry about." Sans sighed, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. "and so do we."

Undyne was about to ask why, but reconsidered. Alphys would think it was her fault. Papyrus would probably freak out and go into Overprotective Brother Mode. She was just glad he'd shown her, at least.

She didn't press it. "What are these things we _do_ have to worry about?"

Sans still wouldn't look her in the eye. "in usual Genocide timelines," he abruptly changed the subject, "the kid gets three chances. three chances to step off the genocide path and reset."

Undyne wanted to interrupt, but he had to be going somewhere with this. "Those chances are…?"

"you, me, and papyrus," Sans answered curtly, like he'd been waiting for her to ask. At her mildly confused expression- Papyrus would never fight to kill- he elaborated. "he's first. and that's where they usually stop the genocide. he's the only who will ever believe in them and tell them they can do the right thing. sometimes that's all the push chara needs to let frisk take over. i don't know why. but i know there are entire timelines that are safe because he was smart enough and brave enough to try kindness when everyone else was focused on strength."

Undyne couldn't help a small grin. It was nice to hear someone else sing Papyrus's praises so sincerely, and honestly, sparing Chara was the most _Papyrus_ thing the skeleton could ever do.

She just hoped he would be able to refrain from doing it this timeline.

"that's the kid's first chance," Sans continued. "mercy always works best on the murderer. funny how that works. but, uh, after they kill him… neither of us are real keen on that." Undyne grimaced. She could imagine.

"their second chance is you. you jump in front of a kid and take a hit, and then you stay alive out of pure determination to knock them down. i think maybe that's when something in them realizes that if monsters need a hero like that to save them, then they're doing something wrong."

Undyne blinked. _A hero like that._ A hero like _her._

"their third chance is me. i basically just kill them until they decide destroying the world is too much trouble." Sans gave a bitter laugh. Undyne didn't like how he mentioned killing Chara so casually… although she supposed it really _was_ a casual occurence to him.

"anyway. papyrus didn't fight them this time. he's not _going_ to fight them this time. that takes away frisk's biggest chance. we need to give them as many chances as possible." Finally, Sans met her eyes.

She understood what he wanted to say. "You want me to fight them."

Undyne was sure he'd be chewing his lip if he'd possessed one. Sans broke eye contact quickly, staring down at his lap. "it's fine if you don't want to, i mean, it's just that you don't _really_ dust, they hit you and you melt yourself, but if we could get you back to monsters with healing magic fast enough, and now we know the determination extractor works, so-"

"Hey. Skelepunk. Chill."

Undyne sighed at the look on the other's face. For pity's sake-! He was a _skeleton,_ he shouldn't be this good at sad puppy eyes!

"Calm down, I'll fight the little demon. Like you said, I don't die unless _I_ kill me." She flashed a grin. "And this plan to keep me alive doesn't sound _nearly_ as risky as your last death-revival plan."

"no one will ever let me forget that," Sans muttered, but he quickly grew serious again. "are you sure? it's chara you're fighting, but frisk is in there too. it's frisk's body. if you kill one, you kill both." He drew in a slow breath. "it's... not as easy as it might seem."

He would know. Undyne's scales crawled at the thought of killing Frisk. Frisk, who'd freed them all and was undoubtedly as much as a victim as they were. _Could_ she even kill Frisk, even knowing that if she didn't, Chara would kill _everything?_

Undyne drew herself up, getting to her feet. She had to. It didn't matter that Frisk was one of her best friends, it didn't matter that she'd be killing Frisk. She probably even wouldn't remember killing Frisk, if those reloads Sans talked about went into effect, but that didn't matter either. What mattered was that she had a duty to these monsters as their Captain of the Royal Guard. It should never have been in doubt that she would try her best to stop the human, no matter how dangerous they were.

"I can handle it," Undyne told Sans. She squinted as a thought came to her. "Wait... did you use so much magic that you had to get DETERMINED and then use the extractor _just_ so you'd know whether or not it worked well enough to convince me to do this?"

Sans shrugged, a familiarly mischievous look on his face. "i mean... that wasn't the _whole_ reason. we _did_ have to transport a lot of monsters. the goals happened to conveniently align."

"Unbelievable." Undyne glared at the younger skeleton. "You have _really_ bad self-preservation insincts, you know?"

"well, i haven't died yet, so there's that. at least not in this timeline." He gave her a small grin. "we'll get out of this. the kid'll get everyone back to the surface next timeline." Sans hesitated, before laying the final words. "i promise."

Undyne shot him a look. There was something off about that promise. After this timeline, there was no guarantee that anyone other than Sans would remember these events. He smiled back at her, getting up, but there was steel in his smile and the threat of magic behind his eyes.

"i think i hear alph and fluffybuns," he said, excusing himself from the room. Undyne stared after him for a moment, shaking her head to clear the thoughts that had sprung up.

She knew now that Sans was going try his absolute hardest to make sure no one but him remembered this timeline, just like every other timeline he'd ever been through. He was going to try and make sure Frisk RESET as soon as possible, to erase their memories as quickly as he could.

Undyne wasn't sure she wanted to forget.

* * *

 **Woop. There you go!**

 **There was a lot of set-up for future chapters. Foooooreshadowing! ;)**

 **Also, some Guest reviews were left on last chapter, and I should probably clarify a few things!**

 **Anon: Nope! No Frans. I personally see Sans and Frisk as close platonically, since the age gap I imagine for them is a bit much for me. Plus Frisk is just a kid in this, and this is more about Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys. No romance, sorry if you were hoping. Sans is a little busy trying to save like, literally everyone to have that kind of relationship at this point.**

 **Ctritic: I don't know about canon. Sans always seemed sorta like a little brother in the game, but maybe that's just me. I don't** ** _think_** **Undertale told us anything about their birth order, and I don't really follow Toby's tweets as canon, so... yeah. If it makes you feel better, I put the 'Sans is younger and Papyrus is older' bit in with the Headcanons That Will Be Used part in the second chapter.**

 **Anywaysies, I'm pretty sure that's all. I'll try to get next chap out as soon as possible!**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a great day!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


	17. Going On Record(ing) As Uncomfortable

**I'm baaa-aaack! I can see you didn't miss me...**

 **(Anyone know where that's from? I won't blame you if you don't, don't worry)**

 **Anyways, yay! New chapter! I'm not dead! All good things!**

 **Also... WOW. Guys. I need to thank you all so much. Seriously. When I started this out, I was just some kid deciding to put my ideas up on a Fanfiction site, and now, thanks to all of you, I'm actually writing a full multichapter story. It's eighty-one pages now, you know? I've never written that much by myself before. And it's all thanks to you. Your reviews, your favs, your follows... even you Silent Squad members who quietly follow along without showing me where you are- you all motivate me so much. Really, every time I get writer's block, all I have to do is look through my reviews and I want to write again.**

 **Thanks for sticking with me, I guess. We're maybe halfway through Untrue Resets now, maybe three-fifths of the way. I can't thank you guys enough. All of you.**

 **Now that that's out of the way! Song of the week: Somebody to Love and Just Somebody I Used To Know, the Glee covers. I just love Glee covers, really.**

 **Hopefully you'll like the new chapter? Drop a review to tell me what you think's gonna happen next? I can tell you, I have some _evil_ plot twists planned. You heard that right- _planned!_ I finally wrote out my ideas for the ending of the story! Woot! I have an outline! (I should've done that from the beginning... shh)**

 **We're checking up on our favorite pacifist/genocidal duo!**

 **Undertale does not belong to me! Toby Fox is King! Enjoy, my friends!**

* * *

Chara wiped the dust from their knife. They stomped across the floor of Napstablook's house, grinning at the way the dust from the Glad Dummy spread across the floorboards. Maybe that would teach the ghost not to mess with them. Napstablook was one of the few things Chara couldn't kill, after all. They had to take… preventative measures.

They smirked as they felt DETERMINATION from Frisk's SOUL slip into their own. The little pacifist was nearly completely overtaken with Chara's presence. Just a little while longer, and their SOUL would be the perfect vessel to house Chara's own.

Chara didn't have an actual SOUL yet. It was more like… a phantom of Frisk's SOUL, filled with their DETERMINATION. Now, though, Frisk's SOUL was greying out with how much DETERMINATION they were losing, and Chara's was becoming stronger by the minute.

Stowing the knife in their inventory, Chara pulled out the tapes they'd scrounged from the skeleton brothers' basement. There was five in total. One was dusty- the one Chara had found in the drawer full of ripped scarves. It looked mildly damaged. Chara used the computers on Napstablook's deck to play the tape.

" _HUMAN! HEY, QUIT MOVING WHILE I'M TALKING TO YOU!"_

They felt Frisk stir inside their mind, alarm rushing through the true owner of the shared SOUL as they tried to look through Chara's eyes to find Papyrus. Chara let them. They leaned forwards, listening to the tape with interest. However did Sans get his hands on an audio recording of his own brother's death?

" _THE WAY YOUR HANDS ARE ALWAYS COVERED IN DUSTY POWDER… IT FEELS LIKE YOUR LIFE IS GOING DOWN A DANGEROUS PATH!"_

He'd probably stolen it from Alphys' cameras. But that didn't clear up the mystery of how he'd gotten a recording from another timeline… well that didn't really matter. Chara smirked at the thought of Sans listening to this. Frisk had calmed down once it became clear that the familiar speech was just a cassette tape.

" _I, PAPYRUS, WILL GLADLY BE YOUR FRIEND AND TUTOR. I WILL TURN YOUR LIFE RIGHT AROUND!"_

Chara let Frisk hear the tape as well. They wondered how the crumbling of bones into dust would sound on tape. _Turn it off!_ Frisk shouted inside their mind, surprisingly angry.

Interesting.

" _ARE YOU OFFERING A HUG OF ACCEPTANCE?"_

A grin spread across Chara's face, and… the tape fizzled to a stop.

"Come on!" they complained. They checked inside the cassette. The rest of the film inside had been ripped apart. It smelled like bones.

Figures.

"Well," Chara hummed. "There's four more tapes, isn't there?"

The second tape was short.

" _heya, other mes. making a recording of this on the off chance that i'll forget._ "

Huh. Why would _he_ make a tape…?

" _all right. i'm gonna inject myself with determination. let's see if this changes anything."_

Chara tilted their (Frisk's) head. If Sans had ever injected himself with DETERMINATION, they'd never noticed. Had they ever had a fight where the skeleton had been melting…?

The tape clicked- past-Sans had turned it off- before crackling on once more. " _never do that again,"_ Sans' hoarse voice gasped, and the tape ended.

Chara giggled. They were sorry that they'd missed that detail in their past Genocides. It sounded like it had been entertaining.

They tried the next tape. Frisk, trapped inside them, was calm and didn't fight for control, for once. It seemed the pacifist was as interested in the tapes as Chara was.

" _um, is this thing on?"_

" _It s-should be… u-uh, hi, future u-us. we're gonna r-r-record this e-experiment for s-scientific purposes. Sans, d-do you h-?"_

Chara blinked in surprise. Alphys and Sans… what were they doing?

" _yup. in this corner, we have…"_ There was a pause that Chara could only assume held some sort of dramatic flourish. " _a human soul!"_ They nearly jumped in surprise. " _and over here, we've got me, the idiot who thinks this is a good idea."_

" _I-i'd like to g-g-go on record a-as 'not c-comfortable with t-this'. I'm p-pretty sure this i-i-is child a-abuse, Sans."_

" _i'm not a kid."_

" _You're l-literally fifteen."_

" _irrelevant. right, we're sciencing and i'm pretty sure alphys may be a little drunk because for some reason she agreed with me to do this. about that, didn't we agree to not do drunk science anymore?"_

" _C-can we please just g-get on with this, t-the s-s-sooner we start, the sooner it's o-over. I k-know you're s-s-stalling."_

" _as per usual, you're absolutely right. you have the scalpel?"_

" _Are you c-c-completely s-s-sure you aren't going t-to die?"_

" _around 97 percent. i stocked up on extra sleep hp. let's get this over with."_

" _It'll j-just be a t-tiny nick. In three, t-two, one-"_

" _agh-!"_

" _Sorry! S-sorry, we're done."_

" _well, i'm not dead, so apparently i can cut off bits of my soul if i take proper safety precautions. sweet. phase one, complete."_

" _D-don't worry, i-it'll grow b-back. And now w-we know you c-can survive getting bits o-of SOUL c-cut off. That's g-good… now for part two."_

" _and we put the soul piece in with a previously cut piece of justice-yellow soul- man, i feel like i'm on a cooking show."_

" _Please d-don't say t-t-that. It's d-disturbing. O-okay, the separate SOUL pieces are in the same container-"_

" _oh. oh jeez. not gonna lie, that's both cool and sorta gross. the soul pieces merged."_

" _The m-monster SOUl looks like i-it's taking control of the huma- n-never mind. It j-just got swallowed u-u-up."_

" _well, i guess we know now that i should probably never absorb a human soul. that would not work out well. and also that dead human souls can bond with monster souls, which was the point of the experiment. you can bring that to asgore, right alph?"_

" _D-definitely. But let's n-not do that a-again."_

Click.

Chara sat in silence for a moment, thinking. So apparently Sans and Alphys had worked together before they'd 'met' in Frisk's influence… when Sans was fifteen, and Alphys was some-younger-age-than-she-was-now. That was an intriguing bit of information. Chara could feel Frisk's curiosity as well.

Maybe there was another tape about their experiments?

The fourth tape made Chara freeze. " _you've been busy, huh."_

They snatched the tape out of the player and ignored the way Frisk brightened when they flinched at the sound of that monologue. Stupid comedian.

The last tape was a sharp, righteous voice, mocking and proud. " _You're going to have to try harder than THAT!"_

"Ooh," Chara hummed. This tape wasn't damaged like Papyrus' death recording. They sat back, enjoying the sound of fighting that came through the recording. Hopefully they would be able to kill Undyne soon to boost their LOVE.

They grinned when that tell-tale slash and the accompanying gasp filtered through the tape. This would be good.

 _No!_ Frisk's mental shout surprised them, and Chara's hand shot out against their will. _No more!_ Their hand grabbed the film and wrenched it out of the cassette. The tape sputtered to a halt.

Chara yanked control back and snarled at Frisk. "Fine! So you want to avoid that so much, we'll just have to kill her for real!"

They left the tapes in Napstablook's house, continuing onwards with their knife gripped tightly in their hands.

* * *

Asgore was confused.

His Royal Scientist had called for evacuation. Total and complete evacuation of the entire Underground. Monsters were piled into the lab basement, and Snowdin Towners pulled Hotlanders aside in order to explain the situation. Asgore himself had been brought into a mostly empty room by Alphys, his Royal Guard Captain Undyne, and the two skeleton brothers. They explained there was a human out there, killing monsters left and right.

"If there is a human, why is no one engaging them in a FIGHT?" Asgore asked. "We do need their SOUL."

Undyne's eye locked on his. "Your Highness, I don't think you understand. Asking monsters to fight that thing- I don't think it even _is_ a human anymore! It's a _murderer!_ We'd be asking innocents to give away their lives."

"she's right," Sans interjected. His Judge was steadily avoiding Undyne's gaze even as he agreed with her. Asgore wondered why. "there's no way any normal monster would win."

"Sans f-fought it f-for maybe a m-minute, h-he got stabbed. He n-n-nearly F-fell, trying t-to get everyone s-safely away," Alphys added. "N-no one else has fought it, s-s-so I think we should trust his j-judgement."

Sans flashed his eye briefly blue and gold, a signal to let Asgore know that that was, in fact, an _official_ Judgement of the human. It was too dangerous to even go near it.

"What will we do?" Asgore murmured. "We cannot just let them run free."

Undyne's trainee, Papyrus, glanced towards Sans. Asgore winced at the sight of the dust on the red sash he wore. "I THINK MY BROTHER MAY KNOW WHAT TO DO?"

Asgore didn't know how _anyone_ could know what to do at a time like this, but Sans nodded. "undyne's going out to meet them."

" _W-WHAT?"_

Alphys spun to look towards Undyne, who dipped her head solemnly. "You c-can't!"

Papyrus looked like he was about to object as well. Asgore interrupted. "Undyne, you already told me that the human has killed many. I cannot allow you to let them kill you as well."

"Your Majesty, this thing is a menace. We've got it on good authority that it killed the old Queen, too." Asgore felt like he'd been punched. Toriel… "Someone's gotta do something. And we said _normal_ monsters won't survive. The four of us, we've figured out a way to use DETERMINATION to keep me alive."

Alphys and Papyrus both seemed like they were not previously aware of this and like they wanted to say more, but kept quiet. Asgore had to admit that Undyne, trained and determined, had a good chance of killing the human. He actually felt anger in his chest when he thought of the last human SOUL. They'd murdered Toriel, and probably many, many more. "... All right."

"Good." Undyne turned around. "I'm gonna go get ready."

She marched out, and after a moment, the others followed, leaving Asgore alone in the tiny room.

* * *

 **Chara listened to the tapes! Finally! And we got a little look at Asgore, too!**

 **YAY!**

 **Sorry, I'm optimistic, haha. I wonder, whatever do those tapes mean... TheDeductionist actually was partially right in their guess on what the tapes were, so props to you, pal!**

 **And soon up... Undyne VS Chara! WHO WILL WIN?**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and have a nice day!**

 **-TheEscapedCharacter**


End file.
